Big Bang Orchestra: Izar

Introduction

Welcome to the Vienna Symphonic Library's series of Synchron Instruments! As the name says, Big Bang Orchestra furnishes you with a selection of full-orchestra articulations, at the same time allowing you (if you haven't done so already) to explore our powerful Synchron Player software. If you're looking for that extra dramatic effect or want to highlight a passage in your composition, this bonus library could be the solution, or at least point you in the right direction.

Synchron Percussion II: A variety of orchestral percussion instruments, including gongs, cymbals, and small bells, arranged on stands in a recording studio or concert hall.
Overhead diagram of Synchron Stage Vienna, illustrating microphone and instrument placement for recording Synchron Strings I. The diagram shows violin, viola, cello, and double bass sections, with specific mic types like Close Mic, Mid Mic, Back Mic, and the Main Decca Tree array, indicating Standard Library and Add. Full Library mic options.

BBO Hercules and BBO Izar feature low brass and low brass clusters, respectively.

Included Presets

Children's choir recording Big Bang Orchestra: Ymir at Vienna Symphonic Library Synchron Stage, with conductor direction and music stands.

BBO Izar enriches BBO Hercules with a wealth of three-note cluster articulations. The basic articulations are the same as those of Hercules, but there are no additional contrabass tuba variants, and instead of the legato section (which doesn’t make much sense with clusters) there is a duplicate of the long notes. This allows you to switch between the articulations of BBO Hercules and BBO Izar without having to adapt any keyswitches. The upper range of the articulations is a whole tone lower than those of BBO Hercules, as the two highest notes are always part of a cluster.

If you own both BBO Hercules and BBO Izar, you can make use of a special Preset calles Low Brass XF Clusters (Hercules XF Izar), which offers an additional Dimension for crossfading between Hercules and Izar articulations with the help of Dim.Ctrl/A (CC1, modwheel). In this way you can determine the amount of cluster tones added to the base note.

  • Range: G1–D4 (glissandos less according to interval)
  • Articulation Keyswitches: C5–F#5

Short notes

Bold and agile.

  • Bold/agile: C6/C#6
User interface showing music articulation and type selection options like short notes, dynamics, long notes, bold, and agile for Vienna Symphonic Library Synchron Instruments.

Long notes

Long notes with and without fff layer, soft, marcato, and espressivo. Except espressivo.

  • Type keyswitches: C6–E6
Vienna Symphonic Library Big Bang Orchestra Izar sound patches interface showing articulation, type, and fff layer options for musical performance, highlighting Long notes and Sustain selections.

Marcato

Marcato attack can be added gradually to the basic articulation with the help of Dim.Ctrl/A (MIDI CC1, modwheel).

Vienna Symphonic Library Synchron Instruments interface showing articulation, type, and Marcato control settings. Articulation options include long notes, short notes, dynamics, flutter and trills, fast repetitions, and glissandos. Type options include sustain, soft, Marcato, and espressivo. Marcato control options are sustain with fff and Marcato, with a CC1 (55) dial.

Dynamics

Sforzato, sforzatissimo, swells short and long, soft and very soft swells, and soft diminuendo..

  • Type keyswitches: C6–F#6
  • Without/with contrabass tuba: C1/D1
User interface showing Big Bang Orchestra Izar articulation and type options, including dynamics, sforzato, and swell controls.

Flutter & trills

Flutter tonguing, half and whole tone trills.

  • Type keyswitches: C6–D6
Vienna Symphonic Library Big Bang Orchestra Izar articulation and type options, showing C5 for articulation with Flutter & trills selected, and C6 for type with Fluttertongue highlighted.

Fast repetitions

Staccato repetitions at 120, 140, and 160 BPM. These are already prepared for timestretching, i.e., all Patches have the original tempo they were recorded with entered as their source tempo. This allows you to adapt your repetitions automatically to the tempo of your project with only two mouse clicks.

  • Tempo keyswitches: C6–D6
Big Bang Orchestra Izar virtual instrument articulation and tempo controls, showing options like short notes, fast repetitions, and BPM settings.

Glissandos

Glissandos, minor and major second, and fourth, up and down. Please note that the actual playing range is diminished by the glissando interval – for instance, minor 2nd upward glissandos can only be played up to D#4 where E4 is the target note, downward ones down to G#1 where G1 is the target note.

  • Interval keyswitches: C6–D6
  • Up/down keyswitches: A0/B0
Screenshot of the Vienna Symphonic Library Synchron Instruments interface showing articulation, interval, and up/down controls with options like Short notes, Glissandos, Minor second, and Up/Down.