Kyle McHattie wrote:This is the infamous Kyle McHattie. I'd like to start by saying that my comment was probably unfair but would like to explain why I made it. I'm completely willing to be wrong and take any practical advice on how to use this library. However, I am not some new user who has never used a sample library, expensive workstations or DAW software. I am a trumpet player and have been for 35 years. I have played professionally. I have a small project studio that includes a Korg Kronos, akai ewi and mpk88 and I use Reason 8.1 because it works better than protools, imo.
My comment was made because I was frustrated to find that not only could I not make the trumpets sound realistic (and I have other libraries that do), I couldn't find ANY way to address the issue with anyone at garritan at all.
Understand that I LOVED the sound of the demo. I WANT to be able to create tracks that have instruments that sound like this. However, if it takes me hours just to make it to sound remotely as good as the demo, I'm just not interested. Frankly, I wanted to use my EWI and have the trumpet sound close with a little tweaking. With other libraries, I have been able to do that for the most part. I bought the Garritan big band library because of the screaming trumpet. I would have paid the price of the whole library for that trumpet sound alone.
If someone can actually show me how to get that sound even close, I will apologize profusely and pull the comment.
In fact, I will not only pull the comment but give a rave review and create a youtube video showing people how to attain that sound themselves.
Making good brass tracks that sound real...even with LIVE PERFORMERS playing REAL INSTRUMENTS can take hours. Man hours are man hours....be all the load placed on a single individual, or spread among many. Just setting up a recording session can be half a day or more. Prepping the recording environment will take multiple people some hours. Rehearsal and recording sessions will take X hours 'per man'. Mixing and mastering stages yet another X amount of man hours. Time is always a factor in music production. Especially when one is new at something and learning.
Being new is not an insult. It happens every day. I've been doing music since 1974, and using computers since the Univac 1 in college. When I changed from Atari to PC, it was 'new' and took time to remaster the same old skills. When I moved from Windows version X to version Y, I was new at a bunch of stuff again, and it took some weeks to adjust. Just moving from CuBase 7 to 8 took a day or so of adjusting. So NEW, and the time getting adjusted is always part of the game. Garritan libraries are just instruments (new to some people, even though they've been on the market with relatively few changes for a long time), with good quality points, and also annoying weak areas, but they're still powerful tools none the less.
Anyway one slices it...it's going to take some practice to do good brass tracks in recordings....even with the best and most expensive sample sets on the planet (in such a case, be prepared to audition thousands of presets hunting for a sound...still costing 'time'). Even with conservatory grade professional musicians in a world class studio (mic placements, blown takes, etc.).
As with any craft...things do become faster and more efficient with new technologies, knowledge, and practice. Try it...if you enjoy it, great, do it yourself. If you don't enjoy the work, and have the resources or skills to compensate others in some way.......pass it on to others to spend 'time' with.
Making a solo brass patch that sounds real played by itself is pretty easy....getting that same patch to 'fit' in to 'musical phrases' and then blend into a 'mix', and still sound 'real' can be a whole different story.
I'll try to offer some pointers and perhaps put up some example midi files when I get a chance.
More on the wind controller a bit later........
Start out with a keyboard or drawing in an editor, and then things will start to make more sense as to how you can configure your wind controller to get these trumpets responding in ways that makes sense to you.
One thing I can tell you right off the bat is to spend a little time with the effects section of ARIA Player (unless you're using external plugins for convolution and reverb...in that case spend some time setting up a proper room in those respective plugins).
Just as a quick example....
Load up Trumpet 1 from JABB3 in ARIA to the first slot on channel 1.
Go to the EFFECTS tab and disable everything.
Play a few riffs on your keyboard.
It's going to sound very tinny, dry, and harsh....almost like someone's crammed a broken harmon mute in way too far! It's so dry, it almost sounds 'fake'....but really, that's exactly what a trumpet would sound like in a super dry room designed NOT to let any sound refract and bounce around. Some of these recording rooms that these kinds of samples are made in are so dry and sound proof, that you can hear your own blood rushing through the veins in your ears!
Now just enable the Convolution effect and choose Small Orchestra Hall.
Next go to the Mixer Tab and turn the send up somewhere between 0 and 50%.
Play a few riffs and tweak that send around a bit.
Note, you can automate the FX send in ARIA player over MIDI using CC91.
Different mixes between the master volume (CC7) and the FX send (CC91) can make the instrument seem to come from 'further away or close' to a mic source.
In the controls panel, you can also find 'stereo staging' adjustments which can be automated with CC36 for placing an instrument's position (distance) relative to the 'virtual mic'.
You should already be much closer to the sound in that Demo. Now that we've placed the trumpet into a virtual room....the harsh overtones bounce around so they mix and meld more like they would in a real room.
Try some different convolution presets and see how much difference they each make.
The rest is about learning the strengths and weaknesses of a patch (or set of patches) and sequencing techniques. Arranging to the instruments you have at hand is similar to arranging for a specific band or orchestra...where you feature its strengths and hide its weaknesses. Without practicing some of the techniques below....arrangements with wind instruments on computers are usually going to sound more like a fancy organ than a wind ensemble. Unless you get into more of the following concepts.
Fiddle with the mod wheel while you're playing some rips and licks. I.E. start it at 50%, move it up as you play higher notes, down with lower notes, and even play around with adding some of the nuanced rises and falls over a single note that a human player might do that would influence the volume. Even if it's just subtle changes on every single note...it'll start to make a big difference as your phrases develop and other parts and instruments are added.
The same goes for velocity....how hard or fast you strike keys is going to impact the tone quality of every note. Sometimes you might prefer the tone quality of a really light stroke, but want to bring the volume up to better match the next note which you preferred at a really high velocity. These subtle changes in velocity mixed with tweaking of the mod wheel (CC1) can help you start to bring out or soften articulations. Really, every single note in a phrase should have a different velocity and volume...even if it's just slight changes...it's going to alter the timber enough that things are far more expressive.
Next comes de-quantization or humanizing. This mainly applies to section work...but shifting the attacks of all the parts a few milliseconds apart will bring out the attack phase of all your parts better. Doing the same for note releases can also help quite a lot. The key here is, if every single horn in the section is attacking and releasing in sync at resolutions of 720bps and higher...well....they're all going to cover each other to some extent.....a muddy mess that's harder for human hears to separate. A REAL brass section is NEVER that precise....the attacks, releases, and 'space between' them for all of the section parts are quite distinguishable.
As for the rips throughout the demo. I gather that some of them are carefully arranged with ultra short midi note events (I'm sensing that some may even be shorter than a 64th note at that tempo...maybe as short as 127th (he's probably adjusting the decay time with a cc controller as well).....in these cases the arranger is letting the characteristics of the 'artificial room' do alot of the work), while others use the the extended sample set (using controller CC15) to pull in fall and doit samples. The CC15 effects are 'release' effects...I.E. The fall or doit doesn't begin until you release the note. On the CONTROLS tab, you can see that CC29 will allow you to adjust the volume of releases (falls, doits, and kisses evoked with CC15).
Legato and portamento effects are big contributors as well. With these particular trumpet patches, the two effects work together. You can choose between an auto mode...or manual pedal controlled mode. In auto mode, if a second note overlaps (starts before you release the first note) the attack changes to a more legato style, and whatever portamento values (CC20 and 21) you have set take effect.
This legato-portamento area is also one way to achieve 'shake' effects in an arrangement. Another way to get some interesting shakes is to use the pitch bend wheel, but draw in 'steps' with slight curves at their peaks, rather than gradual curves and ramps (which would give unwanted glissando effects).
There are a number of things on that CONTROLS tab that can bring a lot of flair and add realism to a phrase. All of them can be controlled using CC messages as noted in parenthesis.
I.E. During a sforzando that ends at fff or louder....you could also use those filters (CC26 and CC27) to gradually brighten and thin out the timber.
I.E. Brass players use different vowel shapes and teeth spacing with the mouth to get all sorts of variations in articulations. On one note he might shape with mouth for a Teeeeee, sound, and on another a Taaaa, Tooooo, etc. Tweaking these filters can help shape essential variety in emulating different tonging styles...as well as emulated caps, kit-kats, doo-dits and da-dats, etc.
One of the first things I always notice when listening to real brass vs sampled brass is split partials from humans, that computers don't have (unless we add them somehow)! Almost every human hits a note slightly off pitch and then corrects it over time. The louder, higher, and sloppier a riff is, the more likely a player is to actually split partials (it may be slight, or pretty big, but it's almost always noticeable on close miced brass) on the attack (lips are buzzing one thing, while the air column is trying to resonate another). To me split partials are like a sonic tug of war.....and they are a BIG part of what makes jazz style playing interesting.
The tracks in the demo don't seem to use these effects...but...if you want split partial effects...experiment with subtle pitch bend commands. For more outstanding split partial effects, try layering a second track on another channel (pan it to exactly the same position in the stereo field) with a different trumpet patch (slightly de-tuned) at a low volume, and fading such pitches in and out as needed (don't be afraid to use horn or trombone patches even...maybe even pure saw/sine/square waves...the point is that it's possible to add to those split partial effects that real players exhibit). The pitch wheel controller can be used to find pitches 'between' half tones (of course you'll have to draw these into an editor as instant 'step changes' or 'quick jumps' rather than 'ramps and curves' since you might not want the 'bended portamento' effect).
Don't underestimate the 'wind noise' option. Add it later when all the parts of the arrangement are ready to mix down....but it can add a good deal realistic spark.
Now back to your wind controller........
After you've played with these trumpets a bit with a keyboard and sequencer, it should begin to make a lot more sense as to what CC messages you want your controller to send, how sensitive they should be...and when, and how you want them sent. It's a whole different animal for sure, and for a truly dynamic jazz style screaming trumpet, don't be surprised if you actually need to cycle among dozens of presets on your wind controller for a single song.
Hope this is somewhat helpful...and at first it probably seems like a difficult and time consuming process. At first it is! It doesn't take too long to get the hang of it though, and even discover methods to automate a lot of stuff, and reuse your work again and again (after all, music is really repetitive...do you really draw or play that double swiss paraddidle drum lick in every single time you need it? Or do you copy and paste it from a toolbox?
A trumpet jazz lick tool box can save just as much time as a percussion rudiment tool box.
Don't be afraid to ask specific questions. People can help you better with less vague questions. I.E. Posting a midi file of a simple riff and asking how to get it to work better.
I.E. A specific example of where you'd like a doit or fall.
As for the Demo in question....it's pretty obvious to me that it's from this very JABB3 library.
When I get a little time, I'll see if I can't transcribe it here and break down some of the techniques they're using to get those sounds. It'd be even better though, if you're willing to put up some examples of your own phrases and tracks that you'd like to 'brass up'.
Credo
by frankie » Wed Mar 11, 2015 10:26 am 
