Sample Modeling The Trumpet v3 is out; $35 upgrade

[mhschmieder]

Surprise email tonight from Sample Modeling regarding v3 of The Trumpet.

I had just checked their forum earlier tonight for the first time in half a year, and there had barely been any posts in that time, and none of note so far this year really.

The library is still Kontakt-based, but they did say they planned to keep the brass libraries on the Kontakt engine.

They did everything possible to maintain backward compatibility with the previous version, and that made the project take way longer than expected. Not sure I agree they should have bothered, given that the Saxes weren't remotely compatible when they switched to SWAM, but I guess they figured keeping The Trumpet on the same engine as before, led to certain expectations about old projects and setups.

Anyway, it is WAY more realistic now. I'm talking about the timbre, which didn't fit everything before but seems now that it would probably work in almost any context. Much more complex harmonics, so it doesn't get brash like the old one could. I haven't checked the mutes yet, which really could have used a lot of work.

One of the things they worked really hard on was supporting realism at super low volume, for a very accurate breathy sound. Microtuning is also now supported.

http://www.samplemodeling.com/en/products_trumpet.php

I really wasn't expecting this update, and am close to finalizing an album that uses The Trumpet a bit here and there and was just going to settle for "good enough" on a couple of tracks. Now I will be revisiting those tracks this weekend to refine them further.

[monkey man]

Good news, Mark, and thank you for sharing.

As you know, I've had the SM stuff on my radar for eons as my brass section... for when I eventually start buying VIs.

Good to know they're still rockin'.

[mhschmieder]

I retracked some stuff late last night, and it's night and day between The Trumpet v2 and The Trumpet v3.

The Trumpet v2 had a lot of character, but sometimes it wasn't the character you wanted. It was kind of untamed, to say the least. Often though, that works.

The Trumpet v3 sounds like a trained player, but can also be pushed into "rude" territory as needed. For the pieces at hand though, I wanted the playability of modeling but the sound of a classically trained person sensitive to pop and jazz.

The sample set is the same size, so I think all the changes are in the scripting.

[mhschmieder]

I didn't have time to try the mutes yet.

With previous versions, I didn't think they were yet quite up to the quality of the Yamaha VL-series -- especially at softer volumes.

[cbergm7210]

close to finalizing an album that uses The Trumpet a bit here and there

It would be great to hear some of this.

[mhschmieder]

Oh, this particular case isn't as exposed as other material that is farther down my back burner.

Just an opening fanfare on one song, and part of a weird-harmony horn section rig with tenor sax and trombone in an otherwise synth-oriented song. The riff is meant to evoke "Let's Dance" (David Bowie) while still being its own thing.

Even so, the latter one (which is on an album I hope to release SOON; unlike the other one), is really useful to hear due to how this new update not only makes the soloed trumpet sound more natural, but also makes for a more realistic sounding brass section. One can't assume one leads to the other!

[monkey man]

... but also makes for a more realistic sounding brass section...

Music to my ears, Mark.

I'd love to hear a pop / funk section mock-up. All the PooToob video demos I saw years ago were showcasing the various solo instruments; the fact that they sounded great got me all excited about finally being able to put a realistic one together one day, but as you said, one doesn't necessarily lead to the other.

Hopefully now that the trumpet's been updated, it will.

[mhschmieder]

I'll try to remember to get audio clips to people soon. I need to buy Logic Pro X first though, so I can convert Note On Velocity to MIDI CC's for my sax parts. Right now they are all at max as SWAM ignores Note On Velocity (the Kontakt instruments don't; they combine that information with breath and expression).

[mhschmieder]

I used Logic Pro X last night to convert MIDI Note On values to CC 11 EXP values and re-tracked some Sample Modeling stuff, and now have the results I originally expected. The Apple docs are incorrect but I figured it out. Nowhere near as direct as DP's MIDI editing features, but there will be times where I need some custom transforms that DP doesn't support.

As for The Trumpet V3, I read the manual last night and it has a ton of new features. One of the ones I'm going to give a try tonight is CC 25, which allows Note On values to work in conjunction with CC 11 EXP to produce sforzando and crescendo effects based on the relationship of the Note On Velocity to some predetermined threshold value. I think this is meant to get keyboard-based work closer to what one can achieve with a wind controller.

I haven't gotten to my Muted Trumpet tracks yet, but suspect that working with the CC's will get me where I need to go.

Really, I think the Sample Modeling stuff has become universally applicable at this point, and I may even start using it for solo parts in orchestral settings.

[mhschmieder]

This is just a quick hit-and-run to alert people that the pitch sensitivity for wind controllers seems to have changed in this latest update.

It took me awhile to figure out what was wrong, but after some fiddling, I got 80% to behave how 200% used to behave. Maybe this is covered in the new user manual; I'll check later.

I am finally re-tracking some of my muted trumpet parts. I tend to blow hard with a lot of lip when I use my Yamaha WX5 to play these sorts of sounds (especially when I was triggering the VL70m module many years ago). So the tracks I recorded for muted trumpet tend to have center notes that technically are "flat" but which I "lip up". Thus I often start at 8192 and loosen embouchure (clarinet style) as needed, for expressiveness.

As the overall timbre is better in Version 3, it's hard for me to tell whether that's the only reason that the mutes also sound better now, or whether they worked on them independently.

Update: I had to correct to 82% pitch sensitivity to account for inflections, as otherwise it went flat. I tried 81% as well, but that seemed a little flat, and with mutes it's better to be a tiny bit sharp -- especially to compensate for inflections in pitch.

I can't explain why I need to do this; I have now thoroughly read the entire new manual and there does not seem to be a change in the pitch/wind feature or in how mutes interact. maybe it's a bug? I think someone on their forum mentioned something; I'll check later.

This is such an old project, that it could be any number of things, but the fact is, with the previous version of The Trumpet, the standard 200% pitch sensitivity for the Yamaha WX series of wind controllers gave the same result as 82% gives in Version 3. The MIDI hasn't changed in that time -- although I did edit some note lengths today AFTER dealing with the pitch issue.

I've rendered this muted trumpet track several times now, as SampleModeling randomizes a bit, and got my best take after a couple of tries. I had to edit some of the inflections to sort of compress their pitch bend range, as the mutes DO seem more sensitive to that than before, and can kind of break up and go silent in some cases, but once I figured that out, I got my best results ever.

I finally felt comfortable erasing my original "live" tracks from the Yamaha VL70m. They sound so artificial to me now, and other than for some missing volume swells (which I can recreate with some effort), the SampleModeling tracks sound like the real deal and I can now enthusiastically endorse this instrument for mute playing as well as standard trumpet.

[monkey man]

That's what I wanted to hear, Mark. Thank you.

SM (sax, trump & 'bone) is now cleared for landing when I buy my VIs.

So far it's just this and Spectrasonics...

EDIT: Drums yet to be determined...

[mhschmieder]

I did a lot more re-tracking a few weeks ago using the new version, and was finally able to get excellent usable results on tracks that had challenged me for years (which were originally recorded using the Yamaha VL70m with the Patchman ROM upgrade).

The mutes are now fabulous, as I may have already mentioned, The "shake" parameter and some of the other new features not only make it sound more realistic but also help towards putting together a more convincing Brass Section that doesn't sound like cloned players.

[monkey man]

Yipee! More good news for my "section", Mark. Thank you, mate.

... Really, I think the Sample Modeling stuff has become universally applicable at this point, and I may even start using it for solo parts in orchestral settings.

More music to my green, moist ears.