Brass wind instruments: keeping power and eardrums

[deragule]

I'm playing with the different types of instrumental families, and it was clear to me beforehand that brass is especially powerful and incisive. On this practice I used equalizers, compressors and a limiter and barely touched the gain and volume; added some reverb too, but not that much: Blue Hour Breeze.
I'm struggling to find a balance between keeping that strength and making the sound not to become irritating and saturated, so I was wondering if you have any advice when approaching this kind of penetrating sound.

You can skip to 02:20-03:00 so that you don't have to listen to the whole track (which is rather monotonous, as it is a practice).

[Mike Moth]

I'm not finding it too irritating or saturated for my ears. That said, I also understand that the tonality might not be what you're looking for, I've encountered similar situations. If the equalizer you're using has an option to drop to only one band and set that band to a band pass that can help to narrow down what particular frequency isn't desired so you can reduce it. Playing around with reverb, and different reverbs, may help too, I've found reverb can occasionally soften harsher tones.

[castlezagyx]

Sounds good to my ears. In a real context, brass instruments surpass any other section, especially in strong dynamics (mf, f, ff, fff), except for horns (in Rimsky-Korsakov's treatise on orchestration this is explained).

But this is not a real context and it is Dungeon Synth, with sounds of ROMplers and synthesizers. What you've done sounds really good to me.

In any case, if you want to preserve the power and penetration of the brass but not saturate the listener, you can try using them horizontally and not vertically, that is, do not create "chords" with tubas, trombones or trumpets, but create lines, motifs and sequences that make up the main melody, or support or respond to it. For example, it is very common to arrange two harmonized trumpets for thirds or sixths, as support for the main melody.

You can also reserve brass for piano or mezzopiano passages. Or use the brass in p or pp while the other sections play louder. There are tons of possibilities, but I would tell you that it's better to treat the problem (assuming it's a *problem*) in the composition than in the mix.

And remember the ultimate weapon: silence. If you find that a part is getting irritating or saturated, maybe you can try to space out the melody (introduce more rests), or give part of the melody to other instruments.

[deragule]

Well, seems like I was the saturated one that day, and I find that must be the case listening to it now.

I did what you say (among other things), Old Moth Dreams, as I continued to find some way to "trick" the sound and keeping the power while reducing that irritating factor I mentioned. I played with some factors on the reverb too, like the Dry controller (although later I would leave the reverb on the master and use a delay for the trumpet, doing the same with it). So yes, that helped but it took away part of that power.

In the end I guess y wanted an impossible, at least to my humble knowledge: keeping the "raw" force without sacrificing almost anything.

Then, castlezagyx (yep, I know you, nice to see you here), big tips there, for I knew we need to be modest with brass wind but didn't know about dynamics and playing it vertically, so that's going to be of great help. The chords I use are from a tuba, at the beginning, and I silence it so much that it almost sounds like a pad made with a synthesizer. Then I introduce more chords with trombones, and both are "capped" by doing power chords (if I'm not mistaken, these are chords formed with 2 notes), so seems like I'm mutering it even more.

In this practice I wanted to play only brass (with the excepcion of a little chorus), so I guess I was looking for the richness of a composition made up of various instruments, even wanting to do something basic, and fooled myself.

It's true that problems and main solutions are usually found in the composition before any filter, and that's why I try to use filters mainly to add effects, rather than to polish.

I'll take the advice of both of you, so thanks for sharing them.

[deragule]

Feb 21, 2023 14:50:37 GMT -5 deragule said:

I'm playing with the different types of instrumental families, and it was clear to me beforehand that brass is especially powerful and incisive. On this practice I used equalizers, compressors and a limiter and barely touched the gain and volume; added some reverb too, but not that much: Blue Hour Breeze.
I'm struggling to find a balance between keeping that strength and making the sound not to become irritating and saturated, so I was wondering if you have any advice when approaching this kind of penetrating sound.

You can skip to 02:20-03:00 so that you don't have to listen to the whole track (which is rather monotonous, as it is a practice).

Did this one as a practice again, trying to avoid the mixer as much as possible (apart from some reverb and little EQ touches).

I used a sampler for almost everything, first time. Seems to be better at handling dynamic ranges for now, especially when VSTs do not have pressure sensitivity or velocity.

Brass just playing vertically (didn't forget the tip) because I wanted to force the machine a little this time.