Good orchestral Trumpet sounds?

[mojobone]

I'm familiar with a fret board. Do they have that layout?

But seriously, how difficult is it to play and/or learn to play?

If you're fretboard familiar, you might be as well off with a thirteen-pin MIDI guitar pickup, particularly if you're used to using a wah or volume pedal; the skills transfer pretty well, compared to breath control, and for a bonus you can sing and play simultaneously, with practice. A keytar and pedal might feel as natural as anything else for emulating brass and winds, if you didn't train on a wind instrument and already know some one-hand scales.

[matto]

IMHO for solo parts (in any style), Samplemodeling can't be beat. It's really the only thing I've found that sounds realistic for a typical mixed articulartion trumpet part in an exposed setting. It's mostly because it's the only instrument that can recreate the dynamic range of a real trumpet in a convincing fashion without the typical sample crossfade artifacts.
That being said, in a denser passage, it almost always sounds better to blend libraries. I typically have both Cinebrass (Basic and Pro) and Samplemodeling going and will decide on a case by case basis which sounds better for a given part and context. Often a mixed ensemble is best.

I don't own Hollywood Brass, I probably would if it ran in Kontakt, but like a majority of composers, I rather dislike the Stop...I mean...Play...engine...

I'm sure it's a great library, but I have not heard anything that would make me believe it could come close to SM for exposed/solo type parts...

Btw, before getting Cinebrass, I had great success blending SM with EWQL Gold, so that combination works well also...

matto

[rpittelman]

If you're fretboard familiar, you might be as well off with a thirteen-pin MIDI guitar pickup, particularly if you're used to using a wah or volume pedal; the skills transfer pretty well, compared to breath control, and for a bonus you can sing and play simultaneously, with practice. A keytar and pedal might feel as natural as anything else for emulating brass and winds, if you didn't train on a wind instrument and already know some one-hand scales.

Hmm, never thought of that. I'm sure that would be easier than trying to learn how to play a breath controller

IMHO for solo parts (in any style), Samplemodeling can't be beat. It's really the only thing I've found that sounds realistic for a typical mixed articulartion trumpet part in an exposed setting. It's mostly because it's the only instrument that can recreate the dynamic range of a real trumpet in a convincing fashion without the typical sample crossfade artifacts.
That being said, in a denser passage, it almost always sounds better to blend libraries. I typically have both Cinebrass (Basic and Pro) and Samplemodeling going and will decide on a case by case basis which sounds better for a given part and context. Often a mixed ensemble is best.

I don't own Hollywood Brass, I probably would if it ran in Kontakt, but like a majority of composers, I rather dislike the Stop...I mean...Play...engine...

I'm sure it's a great library, but I have not heard anything that would make me believe it could come close to SM for exposed/solo type parts...

Btw, before getting Cinebrass, I had great success blending SM with EWQL Gold, so that combination works well also...

matto

Thanks for the input Matto. I too use Kontakt. Eventhough I have almost all EW libraries I never moved up to PLAY. I've read about some people having some issue with it. Never really thought about that aspect of it. Maybe the best option for me right now might be to try SM's trumpet along with my current EWQL library.

Thanks for all of the useful input guys