Effective way to spread a mono instrument?

[HiC]

Experimenting with combined midi/live, I'm attempting to simulate a
trumpet section with one horn. Here's a short fanfare - the trumpets
are live, everything else are Soundfonts.

What I've done so far is clone the trumpet line and put the clones
about 20 cents apart with pitch correction to simulate the slight
imperfections of a real section. Then applied reverb to just the
trumpets. Then recorded the whole thing as audio, then apply reverb to
the resulting mix.

I guess this sounds decent, but ultimately my question is - besides
stereo mic'ing and playing the parts sitting at various points in
relation to the mics, is there an equally or more effective way to
achieve a wide stereo spread, particularly with unison lines like
this, to simulate the ambience of a real orchestral trumpet section?
Or is stereo mic'ing the way to go?

Thanks for any input.

http://home.mpinet.net/~brassplyer/fanfare/fanfare.mp3

[Rick Paul]

I haven't tried this for your specific application, but you might checkout
CloneEnsemble (http://www.cloneensemble.com/cl_main.htm) to see if that
would do the trick. I have used that on vocals for a choir type effect
(check out the ending of "The Lord's Prayer" on my MySpace page if you want
to hear it in action in that context). It works fairly well on some things
and not as well on others. I think there is a demo available that limits
the configuration options you can use. For your application you definitely
don't want it to add the additional octaves, only the unison. (Not sure
what the configuration in the demo does off the top of my head.)

Rick
--
=======================================
Rick Paul
Closet Cowboy Music (ASCAP)
Web: www.RickPaul.info
MySpace: www.myspace.com/rickpaulmusic
=======================================


"HiC" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> Experimenting with combined midi/live, I'm attempting to simulate a
> trumpet section with one horn. Here's a short fanfare - the trumpets
> are live, everything else are Soundfonts.
>
> What I've done so far is clone the trumpet line and put the clones
> about 20 cents apart with pitch correction to simulate the slight
> imperfections of a real section. Then applied reverb to just the
> trumpets. Then recorded the whole thing as audio, then apply reverb to
> the resulting mix.
>
> I guess this sounds decent, but ultimately my question is - besides
> stereo mic'ing and playing the parts sitting at various points in
> relation to the mics, is there an equally or more effective way to
> achieve a wide stereo spread, particularly with unison lines like
> this, to simulate the ambience of a real orchestral trumpet section?
> Or is stereo mic'ing the way to go?
>
> Thanks for any input.
>
> http://home.mpinet.net/~brassplyer/fanfare/fanfare.mp3
>

[Stewart Greenhill]

Hey HiC,

That sounds pretty good.

Did you do the manipulation for each track separately, or use a plugin?
There do exist plugins that do this sort of thing for you. For example,
"Clone Ensemble":
http://www.cloneensemble.com/
This plugin is mostly intended for voice, but it claims to work for
"acoustic instruments" as well. It has the ability to generate up to 32
"clones" of the input. You can arrange them spatially, and can control
the distribution of vibrato and delay between clones.

You'll probably find that there are other "spatialisation" plugins out
there that might give the sort of effect that you're after.

One other comment: there's a bit of a "bend" in the last note.
Presumably in a real ensemble the players would not all do that in
perfect sync. Perhaps some variation in delay might help sustain the
illusion.

Cheers,
Stewart

> Experimenting with combined midi/live, I'm attempting to simulate a
> trumpet section with one horn. Here's a short fanfare - the trumpets
> are live, everything else are Soundfonts.
>
> What I've done so far is clone the trumpet line and put the clones
> about 20 cents apart with pitch correction to simulate the slight
> imperfections of a real section. Then applied reverb to just the
> trumpets. Then recorded the whole thing as audio, then apply reverb to
> the resulting mix.
>
> I guess this sounds decent, but ultimately my question is - besides
> stereo mic'ing and playing the parts sitting at various points in
> relation to the mics, is there an equally or more effective way to
> achieve a wide stereo spread, particularly with unison lines like
> this, to simulate the ambience of a real orchestral trumpet section?
> Or is stereo mic'ing the way to go?
>
> Thanks for any input.
>
> http://home.mpinet.net/~brassplyer/fanfare/fanfare.mp3
>

[Les Cargill]

HiC wrote:

> Experimenting with combined midi/live, I'm attempting to simulate a
> trumpet section with one horn. Here's a short fanfare - the trumpets
> are live, everything else are Soundfonts.
>
> What I've done so far is clone the trumpet line and put the clones
> about 20 cents apart with pitch correction to simulate the slight
> imperfections of a real section. Then applied reverb to just the
> trumpets. Then recorded the whole thing as audio, then apply reverb to
> the resulting mix.
>
> I guess this sounds decent, but ultimately my question is - besides
> stereo mic'ing and playing the parts sitting at various points in
> relation to the mics, is there an equally or more effective way to
> achieve a wide stereo spread, particularly with unison lines like
> this, to simulate the ambience of a real orchestral trumpet section?
> Or is stereo mic'ing the way to go?
>
> Thanks for any input.
>
> http://home.mpinet.net/~brassplyer/fanfare/fanfare.mp3
>

What's wrong with what you have? You could doubletrack the trumpet
part. If mono capability is not at issue, run a "doubling" delay
patch on it - 20 msec left, 30 or 40 msec right, very little regen.

The Soundfonts stuff sounds a little muffled, but that
sorta offsets the trumpet anyway.

--
Les Cargill

[HiC]

On Mar 28, 9:52 pm, Les Cargill > wrote:

> The Soundfonts stuff sounds a little muffled, but that
> sorta offsets the trumpet anyway.


Yeah, the mix could probably stand some EQ tweaking, this was just a
quickie.

[Shawn O'Connor]

"Glennbo" > wrote in message
3.184...
> In oups.com the killer
> robot "HiC" > grabbed the controls of the spaceship
> cakewalk.audio and pressed these buttons...
>
>
> I frequently will take a mono instrument, like a guitar solo, and to make
> it bigger than life, will clone the part, pitch shift it ten or so cents,
> move it a small amout of ticks to the right of the original, and then pan
> it hard left and the original right. This doesn't introduce any flanging,
> since there is no movement of the pitch difference, and it doesn't
> introduce any echo since the original and clone are only a handful of
ticks
> apart. It does make a single part sound BIG though. Your fanfare sounds
> good. Pass the popcorn. ;)



I use an almost identical patch in my guitar effects processor- less than
50 ms delay, about -10 cents on the delayed channel.
I call it "frozen chorus"...Love the sound!

[Willie K. Yee, MD[_3_]]

>
>"Glennbo" > wrote
>> I frequently will take a mono instrument, like a guitar solo, and to make
>> it bigger than life, will clone the part, pitch shift it ten or so cents,
>> move it a small amout of ticks to the right of the original, and then pan
>> it hard left and the original right. . . .

One could also try re-amping one of the trumpet voices.

[Max Arwood]

Another way is to put Clone Ensemble on a bus and add a tiny bit in with an
aux send. Also Waves Doubled and Waves Trippler are good. Or even better -
play the part about 5-10 times on seperate tracks pan them ow you like them.
Add a touch of reverb and your set.
Max Arwood

"HiC" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> Experimenting with combined midi/live, I'm attempting to simulate a
> trumpet section with one horn. Here's a short fanfare - the trumpets
> are live, everything else are Soundfonts.
>
> What I've done so far is clone the trumpet line and put the clones
> about 20 cents apart with pitch correction to simulate the slight
> imperfections of a real section. Then applied reverb to just the
> trumpets. Then recorded the whole thing as audio, then apply reverb to
> the resulting mix.
>
> I guess this sounds decent, but ultimately my question is - besides
> stereo mic'ing and playing the parts sitting at various points in
> relation to the mics, is there an equally or more effective way to
> achieve a wide stereo spread, particularly with unison lines like
> this, to simulate the ambience of a real orchestral trumpet section?
> Or is stereo mic'ing the way to go?
>
> Thanks for any input.
>
> http://home.mpinet.net/~brassplyer/fanfare/fanfare.mp3
>