# A question regarding unisons/division



## CyberGene (Feb 7, 2021)

I have an orchestral score with a part for three trumpets where most of the time the trumpets play in unison and only briefly would play a chord.

How do I notate that, so that it gets played correctly? I see that Berlin Brass has solo trumpets and ensemble trumpets. So, I can use a single staff with a single voice and assign it the ensemble trumpet, however I'm not sure what will happen when it encounters a chord: will it smartly replay it with three solo trumpets or will play it with three multiplied ensemble trumpets?

Or should I use three separate solo trumpet staves?

Or is it possible to assign three solo trumpets to a single staff and it will autmoatically play them in unison? When entering the chord, should I make sure I use three separate voices, or I can create just a single chord from a single voice?

Or are there any notation instructions that would determine how to put that? Something like "all 3" which will instruct that there will be 3 trumpets for a single voice and then it will play automatically in "divisi" (although that's only a string concept AFAIK) when encountering the chord?


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## MadLad (Feb 7, 2021)

The Berlin Brass solo trumpet is just one trumpet recorded. As far as I know the three solo trumpets are also three different players who were recorded, which makes the all three trumpets sound slightly different, which is good if you want to mix them. 

The ensemble trumpets are all three trumpets recorded in unison which means if you use the ensemble and have them play a chord with three notes you'd have nine trumpets playing at once.

I really suggest putting all three solo trumpets in your score for the chords and you can change the instrument on the fly in your score to ensemble anytime (right-click -> change instrument. But be careful the volume and reverb gets reset every time you do that). So, the first trumpet can switch from solo to ensemble which should solve all your problems.

As stated above, you can also just write the same melody in all three trumpet staves since they are all different players. I think that's the way it was intended, anyway. I do that with the horns all the time and it sounds really good.


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## muratkayi (Feb 7, 2021)

I second what @MadLad writes. 
Also: 
I would really love if the functionality for writing divisi which Staffpad already offers could be merged with the playback functionality of ensemble and solo instruments. Because AFAIK, right now, using the divisi notation, however correctly and practial for writing down what you want the ensemble to actually do (given there is a real one), is one thing and switching instrument is a different thing. What I am thinking of is a way of combining the notation of a divisi staff (frontend) with the playback functionality of a sample library which offers both solo instruments and ensemble samples (backend)


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