Help with the trumpet sound!
Alright, so I have tried multiple soundfonts and none of them are working. Can anyone let me know how to make the trumpet sound smoother. By smoother, I mean this (I have examples).
The first sound here is an extract from Haydn Trumpet Concerto in E flat Major (Mi Bémol Majeur). The second one is the same extract but input in musescore.
First link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XEFd_rP4wZ8famzvcHUmYyTRDRvrmhnj/view?…
Second link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BTz0n-FXXVKaZo9yNMUIM0G5hXyot637/view?… (just listen to the first twenty five seconds on them)
Did you spot the difference? Is there anyway I can make my trumpet sound like the one in the concerto?
I REALLY need this to compose the kind of music I want to compose, else there will be tons of compositions with no trumpets in them.
Thank you.
Comments
Some things to consider:
Neither of these recordings is remotely like something you might have heard in the Baroque. The first recording was performed on a modern valved instrument. This concerto was written to be performed on a keyed trumpet. More like a sax than a trumpet.
You can't just plop notes into MuseScore without helping them out. Even this trumpet can be made to sound musical.
In reply to Some things to consider: … by bobjp
No no you do not understand. I do not want the trumpet to sound the way it sounded like in the baroque era. I want my trumpet to sound like the concerto recording I uploaded. And it was not a sax. I saw it, it was a trumpet. Now if that is a keyed trumpet, then how do I make my trumpet sound like a keyed trumpet?
Also...you said that my trumpet can be made to sound more musical. How do I do that?
Thank you!
In reply to No no you do not understand… by ermite
My answer, which I don’t mean to be flippant, would be “one note at a time.” If you’re not already familiar with them, learn about the tools available in MS for adjusting the volume and duration of individual notes at a finer level than what’s actually notated in the score (for volume I mean MIDI velocity; for duration see the piano roll editor or BSG’s DockArticulate plugin). Then concentrate on a single phrase - even just the first three notes here - and see what you can do to give your line a shape that resembles the first example. I’m not saying these are all the tools you need, but they’re the ones you have, in the current version of MS.
The second example is also recorded very dry (without reverb).
In reply to No no you do not understand… by ermite
This concerto was written to show off a new type of trumpet was the first to be able to play chromatics. The trumpet in your recording is a modern instrument.
I found what might be a better trumpet in a font called Symphonic Sounds. Hard to make sound good, but I'll work on it. Probably tomorrow or so before it's ready. I get the feeling that most font designers thinkthat the trumpet is a loud, blatty instrument only good for fanfares.
I agree, the default soundfont for the brass instruments in MuseScore sounds kinda bad.
In reply to I agree, the default… by Ninja Nolan
@ ermite
More things to consider.
These are my personal thoughts.
I grew up playing trumpet. All kinds of music in all kinds of groups. I was never all that great a player. But I know what it's like to play in a group. How to listen and blend. I've heard all kinds of instrument sounds, good and bad. I use notation software to compose, for my own enjoyment. Frankly, I don't write for trumpet much for the very reasons you have expressed. Even playback in Sibelius leaves things to be desired. If I rely on playback to tell me what to write, I might not write anything. Let's face it, the only way to start to get passible playback is with a DAW and lots of very expensive libraries. I feel that even the much sought after NotePerformer falls short.
And yet, any playback system is only as good as the skill of the person using it. I lack skills and equipment to get good playback. But I spent some time with your posted piece and some trumpets. Which means I had to do some transcription, which I hate. There are two main problems with the trumpets in the fonts I sampled. They don't sound good and/or all the notes are tongued too hard. I know of no amount of tweaking that can make up for those things. They are not volume or note length problems. As I mentioned before, I found a usable trumpet in a font called Symphonic Sounds. Not a bad font over all, except that it doesn't respond to Single Note Dynamics like default font does. So I plugged each of the trumpets in the font into the Haydn. Using volume and articulation, I got the "best trumpet" to sound OK. Interestingly, when I plugged in a different trumpet in, my markings didn't hardly work. So I extracted the trumpet from its font and used it and the General HQ font to make the attached sample.
It take much experimentation. What works in one case might not work in another. Partially because of the way recorded sounds stack on each other.