Spring Sale EXTENDED — Save up to 45% on new selects added

British Drama Toolkit: Brass and Reeds

Your score in an instant

  • Overview
  • Listen
  • Walkthrough
  • What's included
  • Tech specs
  • Your score in an instant

    Immerse yourself in a new world of brass and reeds — a stunning sound palette of 99 patches, brought to life with our unique and intuitive Layers technology. Instantly sparking inspiration on first play, it’s every composer’s dream — the ability to finish a whole cue within a single patch. Made in collaboration with award-winning composer Samuel Sim, intricately workshopped techniques from a range of solo brass and woodwind instruments (including saxophones, recorders and flugelhorn) are presented in various combinations, each offering a full spectrum of emotion and expression.

    For anyone looking to embrace a new approach to scoring — and a fresh alternative to string instruments — this sophisticated toolkit offers instant creative freedom. Brass & Reeds intuitively matches the intensity at which your fingers hit the keyboard by selecting from three different velocity layers, layering textural beds with characterful, emotive lead lines — unlocking a world of sound in every patch.

    • Hard drive delivery available at checkout
    • You can buy now and download any time

    Our dedicated plugin

    Compatible with NKS

    99 patches

    17 instruments

    Dedicated plugin

    Close and Tree

    Listen to British Drama Toolkit: Brass and Reeds

    Trumpet player up close
    Producers around a laptop
    Musician playing saxophone with sheet music stand in front

    Unique Layers technology

    Our inbuilt Layers technology is unique to the British Drama Toolkit series, allowing you to compose, arrange and complete a cue in one pass. Since faders are not required (although Expression, Attack and Release controls are available within the plugin, as well as velocity sensitivity control via the Dynamics slider), you have the flexibility to play with both hands to achieve a beautifully intricate, dynamic and musical sound — improvising and sketching on the fly as you would on a piano. 

    The magic begins as soon as your fingers hit the keyboard. Depending on the intensity at which you hit the keys, the plugin selects from up to three velocity layers (Texture, Soft & Loud), with varying expressive performances within each layer. It’s a unique experience, offering ultimate creative control as well as the opportunity to listen and move intuitively, responding to the varying lengths of notes and subtle shifts present within each technique.

    BDT: Brass & Reeds GUI

    This is a great library! It sounds very live and intuitive to work with.

    Ruth Barrett

    Victoria, Law & Order, The Durrells, Bodyguard

    Close up of hand on Tuba valves with smokey overlay

    Composer Samuel Sim has won multiple awards for his deep, gritty TV and film drama scores — with credits including epic Netflix series The Dark Crystal, the BBC’s Showtrial, and The Spanish Princess. Writing scores often requires a huge amount of music, working to tight deadlines. Teaming up with Spitfire Audio, Sim’s unique vision was to create a toolkit that removes the barriers between musical ideas and their realisation. Since velocity sensitivity can dramatically amplify the character and emotion of your music by creating nuanced and realistic sounding performances, one patch is capable of a huge range of expression — allowing you to respond instinctively to the drama, rather than get sucked into what Sim calls “the vortex of the computer”. The result is a living and breathing palette of sounds designed for those looking for that spark of inspiration, with the tools needed to get your ideas down quickly – ready for wherever your imagination may take you. 

    What's included

    Instruments

    Combis

    • Double Reed Ensemble
    • Contrabassoon
    • Cor Anglais
    • Oboe

    Recorder Ensemble

    Saxophone Ensemble

    • Bari/Bass Sax
    • Alto Sax

    Brass Ensemble

    • Tuba
    • Bass/Tenor Trombone
    • Tenor Horn
    • Flugelhorn


    Presets

    Double Reeds

    Double Reed Ensemble
    • Long — A full combination of textural, soft and loud dynamic layers with a variety of performance styles.
    • Soft — A softer combination of performances featuring textural and soft layers.
    • Swell — A long and dynamic swell articulation.
    • Performance — A dynamic, performable combination of short articulations which fade into held longs.
    • Rounded Short — Layers of short articulations performed with a rounded envelope.
    Contrabassoon
    • Long
    • Soft
    • Swell
    • Chatter — A single layer performing a random 'chattering' effect.
    • Layered Chatter — A combination of a 'chattering' effect with a long textural layer.
    • Performance
    • Rounded Short
    Cor Anglais
    • Long
    • Soft
    • Swell
    • Performance
    • Rounded Short
    Oboe
    • Long
    • Soft
    • Swell
    • Performance
    • Rounded Short


    Recorders

    Recorder Ensemble
    • Long
    • Soft
    • Bend Vib — A soft articulation with gentle bending vibrato throughout.
    • Chiff — An alternate variation of longs with a powerful chiff in the top layer.
    • Flutter — A single layer performing a random 'fluttering' effect.
    • Layered Flutter — A combination of a 'fluttering' effect with a long textural layer.
    • Performance
    • Rounded Short


    Saxophones

    Sax Ensemble
    • Long
    • Soft
    • Chatter
    • Layered Chatter
    • Performance
    • Rounded Short
    Bass/Bari Sax
    • Long
    • Soft
    • Chatter
    • Layered Chatter
    • Performance
    • Rounded Short
    Alto/Sop Sax
    • Long
    • Soft
    • Growl — An alternate variation of longs with a powerful growl in the top layer.
    • Chatter
    • Layered Chatter
    • Performance
    • Performance Soft — A variation of the performance patch with a softer combination of shorts and longs.
    • Rounded Short


    Brass

    Brass Ensemble
    • Long
    • Soft
    • Performance
    • Brassy Performance — A performance patch with a brassy short articulation at the front.
    • Rounded Short
    • Brassy Short — An extended, short articulation with a wide brassy shape.
    Tuba
    • Long
    • Long Soft — A softer combination of performances featuring textural and soft layers.
    • Multiphonics — A soft articulation with gentle multiphonics scattered throughout.
    • Chatter
    • Layered Chatter
    • Performance
    • Brassy Performance
    • Rounded Short
    • Brassy Short
    Bass/Tenor Trombone
    • Long
    • Soft
    • Swell
    • Long Sfz — An alternate variation of longs with a powerful sforzando in the top layer.
    • Performance
    • Rounded Short
    Tenor Horn
    • Long
    • Soft
    • Performance
    • Brassy Performance
    • Rounded Short
    • Brassy Short
    Flugelhorn
    • Long
    • Soft
    • Swell
    • Performance
    • Brassy Performance
    • Rounded Short
    • Brassy Short


    Combis

    Textural beds combined with lead lines.

    • Brass and Reeds
    • Brass and Oboe
    • Brass and Cor Anglais
    • Brass and Alto Sax
    • Reeds and Flugelhorn
    • Reeds and Saxes
    • Saxes and Oboe
    • Saxes and Flugelhorn
    • Brass and Saxes
    • Brass and Recorders
    • Reeds and Brass
    • Reeds and Recorders
    • Saxes and Brass
    • Saxes and Reeds
    • Saxes and Recorders


    Mics and mixes

    Close

    Close intimate mix capturing every detail of the instrument.

    Tree

    Medium distance signal with added depth.


    Testimonials

    As with so many of the Spitfire Libraries I can definitely see this providing inspiration and helping to get an idea off the ground in a hurry. The textural beds with their pulsing repetitions are hugely useful in the way that previous Spitfire string textures have been at holding tension in a scene. The recorder patches are a welcome addition - it’s so great to have a fresh take on these often neglected instruments!

    Ben Foster Happy Valley

    Whether you’re scoring a film or scouting for evocative textures, Spitfire has a dramatic new proposition to capture your imagination.

    FAQs

    Does Brass and Reeds share content with the first British Drama Toolkit?

    No, these are two independent libraries.


    Is Brass and Reeds an update to my current British Drama Toolkit?

    No, Brass and Reeds is a brand-new library in the Drama Toolkit range.

    It installs uniquely to its own folder, and loads in its own plugin separate to the two Kontakt drama toolkit releases.

    Read more FAQs for this product

    Tech specs

    Mac system requirements

    Mac OS X 10.15 to OS 13

    Minimum: 2.8GHz i5 minimum (quad-core), 8GB RAM

    Recommended: 2.8GHz I7 (six-core), 16GB RAM

    Both Intel and Apple Silicon/ARM are supported

    32-bit systems are not supported.

    PC system requirements

    Windows 10 or Windows 11 - (Latest Service Pack, 64-bit)

    Minimum: Intel 2.8 GHz i5 (quad-core) or AMD Ryzen 5, 8GB RAM

    Recommended: Intel Core i7 6th gen and later or AMD Ryzen 7, 16GB RAM

    32-bit systems are not supported.

    File size

    8 GB disk space required during install 

    British Drama Toolkit: Brass and Reeds sounds great with…