# Scoring for brass ensemble – mock-up with Spitfire BBCSO Core



## slowdon (Oct 23, 2020)

Hello all!

For those interested, you can follow my Logic session for a nine piece brass ensemble piece ‘The Once And Future King’.



All instruments are from Spitfire Audio BBC Symphony Orchestra Core, plus standard Logic EQ and reverbs.


Best wishes,
Simon


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## Romy Schmidt (Oct 24, 2020)

slowdon said:


> For those interested, you can follow my Logic session for a nine piece brass ensemble piece ‘The Once And Future King’.
> 
> All instruments are from Spitfire Audio BBC Symphony Orchestra Core, plus standard Logic EQ and reverbs.



The harmony could use a little more variation. And I have the feeling that you used standard settings per instrument as well. It all sounds a bit bland.


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## slowdon (Oct 24, 2020)

Romy Schmidt said:


> The harmony could use a little more variation. And I have the feeling that you used standard settings per instrument as well. It all sounds a bit bland.



Hi Romy, thanks for your feedback and taking time to listen! What do you mean by _standard_ settings? I have the Core version of the Spitfire BBCSO – so no microphone position options. And I wanted to keep things simple with just standard logic reverbs.

Best wishes,
Simon


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## Peter Williams (Oct 24, 2020)

You can open up your panning positions a bit. Expression ccs could be overlaid on a per track basis to put some motion and breath into the playing. Then you can double staccato patches on the specific tracks where long articulations need some added attack (don't overdo it--keep volumes low on the shorts and match panning and other characteristics). Variation using filters can also work. Varied track settings using your reverb algorithms can also create an illusion of spatial separation, and add darker and lighter tone as you like.


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## slowdon (Oct 24, 2020)

Hi Peter, thank you for taking the time to have a listen. I did some panning in the Spitfire player, but would you use the logic mixer panners in addition?

Do you advise combining the expression CCs and modulation CCs together? Is this what most people do with these kind of libraries?

Thanks for all the useful feedback re staccato doubling and reverb. Lots to try in the future!


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## Peter Williams (Oct 24, 2020)

slowdon said:


> Hi Peter, thank you for taking the time to have a listen. I did some panning in the Spitfire player, but would you use the logic mixer panners in addition?
> 
> Do you advise combining the expression CCs and modulation CCs together? Is this what most people do with these kind of libraries?
> 
> Thanks for all the useful feedback re staccato doubling and reverb. Lots to try in the future!


The player probably works fine for panning, but I don't have it, so I can't judge it. Yes, combining the two ccs should work fine, depending on the differential degree of change that you get with them. Your ears will know how well it works.


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## slowdon (Oct 25, 2020)

Peter Williams said:


> The player probably works fine for panning, but I don't have it, so I can't judge it. Yes, combining the two ccs should work fine, depending on the differential degree of change that you get with them. Your ears will know how well it works.


Great – thanks Peter!


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## FinGael (Oct 25, 2020)

Thank you for sharing. I have listened to your piece for a couple of times. Some thoughts...

I liked the themes and to me the music told a story.

I acknowledge your choice of writing for a brass ensemble, but I still think that the compositional material, style, motifs and themes in your piece would work better with a full orchestra. Some of the parts could be brass only, but as a whole I felt it needed more colours. Brass ensemble lovers may disagree with that, but I think that your piece of music felt at times a little bit too repetitive and monotonic - dynamic wise. I like brass music but I think that this would not stay in my playlist in its current form.

If you want to keep it as a brass piece, I would suggest to try working with the dynamics of the instruments to get rid of the block chord feeling - to get it to sound more realistic and alive.

To sum it up for me: it was ok, but could be much better if put some extra thought and work on it.

_Edit; read the description at Youtube and found out that you wrote this piece for a real brass ensemble. My thoughts were mostly about this mockup and with a real ensemble this could work much better. _


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## slowdon (Oct 25, 2020)

FinGael said:


> Thank you for sharing. I have listened to your piece for a couple of times. Some thoughts...
> 
> I liked the themes and to me the music told a story.
> 
> ...


Thank you so much for taking the time to listen!

Yes, I was asked by a brass ensemble to have a go at writing a piece for them. Not an instrumentation I’ve written for before. You’re right that it was quite limiting in terms of varying the tone, but I saw it as a challenge!

Thank you for your helpful feedback and I’ll look into using more controller automation to breath life into the samples in the future.


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## Romy Schmidt (Oct 26, 2020)

slowdon said:


> I wanted to keep things simple with just standard logic reverbs.



That's the problem. I understand though. I did the same thing in the beginning. But the truth is you will always have to adjust the settings, especially reverb and delay.


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## slowdon (Oct 26, 2020)

Romy Schmidt said:


> That's the problem. I understand though. I did the same thing in the beginning. But the truth is you will always have to adjust the settings, especially reverb and delay.


Hi Romy, I think I meant standard plugins available in Logic, rather than standard settings. But I’ll definitely experiment more with changing reverb and delay parameters for different instruments/articulations.
Thanks again for your help!


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