Welcome back to Music Nation StudioWise. This week I’m diving into another library from Fracture Sounds, a company that’s steadily building a solid reputation for expressive, playable virtual instruments with their Soloists series.
In a sector of the market dominated by the mainstay sample library companies, its always refreshing to see a fresh and exciting developer take on the big boys. Fracture Sounds’ offering, Emotive Woodwind Soloists, follows in the footsteps of Majestic Brass Soloists, which I reviewed earlier this month, with another tight, expressive legato focused library that could be on par with its brass section counterpart.
Spoiler alert: it’s better!
First Impressions
Fracture Sounds Emotive Woodwind Soloists is a VST sample library for the Kontakt platform. A lot of what I said about Majestic Brass Soloists applies here too. The layout, controls, and overall design are nearly identical, give or take a few articulation placements. If you haven’t already, I’d recommend checking out that review after this one – it’ll help you get a sense of the shared DNA between the two libraries. (Majestic Brass Soloists Review)
Installation is about as painless as it gets. You just pop a code into Native Instruments’ Native Access, let it do its thing, and within a few minutes it appears in Kontakt ready to play. No weird folder juggling or manual path setting. Always nice when a dev keeps things simple.
Emotive Woodwind Soloists contains around 80 articulations shared between flute, clarinet, cor anglais, oboe and bassoon, with a bonus piccolo patch and extended decorative articulations for the main instruments. The library weighs in at around 65gig uncompressed, and requires the free or paid version of Kontakt 6 or higher.
All the Soloists libraries from Fracture Sounds share the same clean interface: large performance controls for dynamics, tone (labelled “color”), width, and reverb across the top; articulation and mic mixing options in the middle; and the detailed instrument controls along the bottom. It’s intuitive, well spaced, and refreshingly uncluttered.
Visually, Emotive Woodwind Soloists trades the brass library’s warm tones for a more elegant white-on-French blue theme. It looks classy without feeling sterile. You get the same “In Situ” mic mixer, which lets you blend three microphone positions for a realistic in-room placement – or you can switch to stereo or a custom mic setup to save a bit of CPU. Handy if you’re running a big template.
Legato and Playability
One of the standout features of the Brass Soloists library was the Smart Legato system, and it’s here again, working exactly as well – maybe even better. Essentially, it uses a bit of look-ahead latency to choose the best legato transition for your playing style. You can adjust how much time it has to “think” by moving a simple slider. Less time for live playing, more for detailed realism once you’re done recording. Smart, simple, effective.
This system really shines with woodwinds. The instruments naturally lend themselves to lyrical phrasing, and with a bit of mod wheel control, you can craft some genuinely beautiful, organic-sounding lines. The flute and clarinet, in particular, feel alive – smooth, expressive, and incredibly playable.
What’s impressive is how the legato reacts dynamically. You can move seamlessly from whisper-soft to full-bodied without the usual awkward transitions you get in some libraries. It doesn’t overreact or smear between notes; it just flows in a way that feels musical rather than mechanical. You can tell Fracture Sounds recorded a lot of detailed legato intervals here – there’s real variation in how the player transitions, not just volume or filter tricks.
I also like how forgiving it is for sketching ideas. You don’t need to be a MIDI wizard to make it sound convincing. Even a rough mod wheel pass sounds believable, which makes it great for fast composing sessions when you just want to play and not think about automation lanes or articulation switching. For me, that’s one of the marks of a good performance library – it gets out of your way and lets you stay in that creative zone.
It’s worth noting that not all instruments respond quite the same; the oboe’s legato feels a touch more delicate and requires a lighter touch, while the bassoon has a more pronounced phrasing that sits beautifully in slower, emotional passages. But across the board, there’s a sense of consistency that makes mixing and layering these patches painless.
The Sound
Fracture Sounds’ recording quality is world-class. Everything here feels consistent across the articulations, which is rarer than you’d think. There’s no sudden change in character when switching from sustain to staccato, no odd crossfades or clunky transitions. It’s all balanced beautifully.
Emotive Woodwind Soloists has an upfront, slightly gritty tone. You can hear the breath and finger noise, which gives the instruments that “right in the room” quality. There’s a touch of intimacy to these recordings that makes them stand out from the more cinematic, reverb-drenched options out there.
The sustain patches sound lovely, but I did wish for a release control to help shape faster phrases. The shorts also lean a bit on the longer side for my taste, so you’ll often find yourself relying on the legatos to keep things flowing naturally.
Also, if I had to nitpick, I’d say the articulation list is on the minimal side. You get all the basics – sustain, staccato, tenuto, trills, swells, and short/long variations – but nothing too flashy. No rips, falls, or multi-tonged special effects. It’s a legato focused library, designed for expressive, melodic playing rather than wild virtuoso runs. That said, for under $200 RRP, it’s hard to complain. It nails the essentials, and nails them well.
If you’re new to the world of sample library articulations, have a read of my previous article outlining orchestral play styles – A Practical Guide to Orchestral Articulations.
Layering and Compatibility
In a mix, these instruments blend surprisingly well with most orchestral libraries, though you do have to be a little thoughtful with placement. Fracture’s recordings tend to be upfront and bold, so they can easily dominate softer, more ambient libraries if left untouched. A touch of extra room reverb or a bit of gentle EQ roll-off around the upper mids usually helps them settle into place.
I found they layer particularly nicely with Spitfire Studio Woodwinds, since both share a relatively dry, controlled recording space. They sit together without much fuss. When paired with something lusher, like Albion V or Orchestral Tools Berlin Woodwinds, the contrast can actually be a plus – it adds a sense of presence and definition to solo lines that might otherwise get swallowed in the mix. The flute and oboe especially cut through dense textures beautifully without sounding harsh.
If you’re working with more cinematic libraries like ProjectSAM Lumina or EastWest Hollywood Orchestra, you’ll probably want to back off the close mics or blend in more of the In Situ mic position to create a bit of natural distance. That usually brings them into the same “air” as those wetter, more reverb-heavy libraries. Once balanced, they sound completely natural together, as though recorded in the same hall.
One of the nice things about Fracture’s samples is their tonal consistency. They don’t carry a strong baked-in reverb tail or heavy coloration, which means they respond well to external processing. You can shape them to match almost any environment – small chamber setups, dry scoring stages, or big cinematic halls – with minimal effort. They also hold up beautifully under light compression and tape-style saturation, which is handy when layering with strings or brass for extra warmth.
Overall, I’d say Emotive Woodwind Soloists works best as a featured voice sitting slightly above the rest of the ensemble. That extra intimacy in the recordings makes them ideal for solo passages, lyrical moments, or doubling string lines where you want that human breath and phrasing to peek through.
Conclusion
Reviewing this one was almost too easy. Emotive Woodwind Soloists is every bit as good as Majestic Brass Soloists – maybe even a touch better thanks to the extended articulation selection, and how naturally these instruments respond to phrasing and dynamics.
At $199, slightly more compaired to $169 for Majestic Brass Soloists, it’s still represents excellent value and an easy recommendation. Beginners will find it friendly and inspiring, while seasoned composers will appreciate just how quickly it gets out of the way and lets you make music. I’d even say the Smart Legato here is one of the best implementations currently available, period.
Fracture Sounds are quickly becoming one of those “safe buy” developers for me. Every release they’ve put out so far has been solid, musical, and thoughtfully designed. If you’re building a collection of expressive solo instruments, this one deserves a place right near the top of your list.
You can find more info and purchasing details for Emotive Woodwind Soloists over at www.fracturesounds.com
