Some famous European musician or other was asked about where one should stand in relation to a bagpipe to best appreciate the distinctive sound of the instrument. "As far away as possible," he replied, "Preferably in another country."
While possibly unfair, the close and far mics of the Crumhorns will give you some idea of what that bagpipe critic was talking about. On the Far mic the the higher pitched Crumhorns sound something like a Medieval Fantasy Battlehorn. I can see Dwarves playing this to sound the alarm that enemies are about to invade their mountain stronghold. At Close range they sound as if some brave or foolhardy Dwarf had found a way to make an instrument composed entirely of angry bees. The lower the pitch, the angrier the bees.
These are instruments with a limited range as the Alto and Tenor Crumhorn between basically cover C3 to not quite C5 and overlap a lot. The Bass and angriest Crumhorn drops the bass end of the range down to E2 so you end up with a roughly two and a half Crumhorn range as a Trio.
The Staccato articulations sound like an older variant of some of the woodwinds we are familiar with as the quick release doesn't give the bees enough time to get up an fervor.
One reason they sound so odd to our ears according to the fine folks at Wikipedia, "Capped double-reed instruments have the double reed covered by a cap" and none of these instrument exist in the modern orchestra. Single Reed instruments like the Clarinet and Exposed Double Reed instruments like the Oboe and Bassoon made the orchestral cut so we are used to them. This is likely because Dwarves don't exist in this world anymore. Ask Tolkien why, I've forgotten.
The Alto and Tenor Crumhorns sound good as military and patriotic instruments. As an American I noticed that I was inadvertently trying to play the Star Spangles Banner on them. The Close Mic settings especially on the Bass Crumhorn would be excellent for any Disney movie involving Winnie the Pooh getting stuck in a Honey Tree which seems to happen to the poor fellow with distressing regularity.
After the Crumhorns, we still have 5 Reed instruments in this generous Woodwinds collection. The Bombarde is a powerful instrument that sounds something like a primitive member of the Oboe family. There seem to have been variants of these across Europe under different names and in some cultures they were used in conjunction with bagpipes. They do have the sound and, from what I've been reading, the power to stand up to the bagpipe. For best effect and realism crank the Bombarde volume up and wail away.
The Bombarde does have the flare at the end that looks a bit like a Trumpet and there does seem to be just a touch of Trumpet to the sound. The interface text suggests that it was often used with trumpets, flutes and drums. When this was done, there better have been a lot of loud flutists to keep up to the power of the Bombarde! I did mess with a little piece using this instrument, the Cornett and the Alto Recorder and they do go well together.
The Ciaramello Soprano moves us up the keyboard as the name indicates to the higher pitched Shawms. The Bombarde and the Ciaremello are both part of the Shawm family which is to quote Wiki "a conical bore, double-reed woodwind instrument made in Europe from the 12th century". It really does sound something like a less powerful and higher pitched Bombarde, something like when you go from Bassoon to Oboe. It also sounds something like the bagpipe when you take off the bags mixed again with a touch of trumpet.
The Dulciana is the precursor to the modern Bassoon. It sounds mellower and warmer than the Crumhorns and the Shawms and much more like an invitation to play in an orchestra than an invitation to go to war. While the Dulciana is bass and the the Bombarde is baritone they do share an octave in range and it is interesting to listen to them in duet and adjusting the volumes to hear more of one and then the other. The Bombarde really does sound as if it was from an era hundreds of years before the Dulciana. If you took your Dulciana to your local community orchestra you could probably fit in though with some comment. If you took your Bombarde they would call the police.
Up next the Rauschpfeife. This German capped Shawm is also known as the Shrieking Pipe. If the Bombarde sounds something like the chanter of the bagpipe played alone, the Rauschpfeife sounds like an angry chanter looking for the dirty rat who stole his bags. In fact according to that source of all knowledge, Wikipedia, modern versions actually use bagpipe reeds.
This is an aggressive and powerful instrument that shares most of the range with the Bombarde, it lacks the lowest notes, and can be swapped when you want a more aggressive sound. I think it works pretty well with the Crumhorns which have anger issues of their own.
And now that terror of all the reed instruments, the Zampogna. You might know it as the Bagpipe. In this case the Italian Bagpipe. The Bagpipe is notoriously hard to sample, but Fluffy Audio has done a solid job of getting that iconic bagpipe sound. The last couple notes have an odd bend to them, but overall if you want an out of the box bagpipe virtual instrument this is quite nice.
Since I'm not actually familiar with how these instruments should sound, though I did look some up on Youtube, I can't really speak to the tone. They generally have a primitive feel which works well with the other instruments in the package and aside from a few quirky notes, seem solid to me. However I have a friend, who plays these instruments along with about anything you can blow into and plays them well, and he suggested that while he thought the Lutes and Percussion were very nice, the Reed instruments were not well done. His complaints were bad tone and poor tonguing.
As with most other instruments that have long sustains I felt that these could have benefited by a second round robin layer. I would strongly suggest using the legato instead of the sustain and that isn't a problem as that is how the articulations are generally set by default. The staccatos have four round robins so they work well.
Next - Brass
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