Hi everyone!

What is the best way to create some more realistic brass section voices? The presets on my xf sound tinny, canned, and processed. Is there a way to modify the presets, or is there a good sound library? Thanks!

-Max

I can’t recommend 3rd party brass sounds from experience, but yes, you can edit the Preset VOICES with the entire collection of parameters available in VOICE and ELEMENT EDIT, then STORE as a USER VOICE.

Thank you for the suggestion.

I have been editing the brass voices for some time. The problem seems to be that there is too much high-gain on the voices. The problem is, I cannot reduce it enough, even with EQ, and it appears to be in some of the samples as well. My CVP-305 Clavinova’s brass is more realistic in the end. What I am trying to say is that the tone reminds me of if someone layered two of the same voice, and changed nothing. That weird chorus-like effect. For now I have a heavily modified “Velo Falls” voice, but it still has to much of that tonality.

-Max

Mighty Motif Max - 11 October 2016 06:50 PM

Hi everyone!

What is the best way to create some more realistic brass section voices? The presets on my xf sound tinny, canned, and processed. Is there a way to modify the presets, or is there a good sound library? Thanks!

I would never deny that some of the presets could stand some improvement (although I suspect that we wouldn’t agree on which ones, and what needed to be changed about them :-) ). However, there seems to be a common theme here…
http://www.motifator.com/index.php/forum/quotereply/595962/

Mighty Motif Max - 01 October 2016 01:10 PM

The entire piano sound is very compressed and canned - not just the lows or highs. The mid-section is by far the worst. [...]

... so is it possible that there’s a common cause? Have you gotten a pair of good speakers yet? Have you determined if you’re hitting sufficient key velocity levels?

http://www.motifator.com/index.php/forum/viewthread/461020/
http://www.motifator.com/index.php/forum/viewthread/455589/

5pinDIN - 11 October 2016 09:47 PM

Mighty Motif Max - 11 October 2016 06:50 PM

Hi everyone!

What is the best way to create some more realistic brass section voices? The presets on my xf sound tinny, canned, and processed. Is there a way to modify the presets, or is there a good sound library? Thanks!

I would never deny that some of the presets could stand some improvement (although I suspect that we wouldn’t agree on which ones, and what needed to be changed about them :-) ). However, there seems to be a common theme here…
http://www.motifator.com/index.php/forum/quotereply/595962/

Mighty Motif Max - 01 October 2016 01:10 PM

The entire piano sound is very compressed and canned - not just the lows or highs. The mid-section is by far the worst. [...]

... so is it possible that there’s a common cause? Have you gotten a pair of good speakers yet? Have you determined if you’re hitting sufficient key velocity levels?

http://www.motifator.com/index.php/forum/viewthread/461020/
http://www.motifator.com/index.php/forum/viewthread/455589/

OK. The piano stuff was through mono. This brass problem is through stereo. This is in a live environment with stereo and everything else. I am hitting the keys hard enough, as I am using the XF8, not the YS200 for playing the brass sounds.

Thanks for the links!

-Max

Too processed? Turn off the effects using the front panel buttons and see what you think. If that sounds better to you, then edit the voices to remove the effects (or dial them back) and save as User Voices.

As silly as this may sound.  I used to use a Korg T-3 and used one of their stock Brass Mix sounds that my band still swear to this date that sounds better than any brass sounds that I am able to compile with either my ES-6 or my XS-6.  I tooled around with stock brass sounds and thought that I was able to more or less recreate the sounds that they swear are better sounding.

Now I know, that sounds of any type are subjective and though that I created something that would take place of the brass in the T-3.  Anyway, I still have the T-3, but it resides in a hard case and occasionally I rent it along with other keyboards that I have acquired over the years.  I told the band to get over it and they have.  I did however decrease some of the effects that reside in the Yamaha keyboards as they are somewhat heavy in my opinion and this seemed to help, but I believe that the Korg T-3 sounds are in a 16 bit linear format and the sound a little more raw.  I’m not sure what bit that the Yamaha keyboards raw data are sampled in and am not complaining.  Just food for thought that maybe the brass in the Yamaha keyboards may be recorded too clean.

Korg sells apps for the IPhones that replicate any and all of the factory sounds of the Korg M1/T3.  They sound fine and seem to be very close to the sounds that already reside in my T-3.

Sorry for the long post.  Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Kenny

I will start to excause my bad english, I´m from Sweden. I understand your problem. But the issue is to play brass the right way. If you are using it in sequences, instead of using those “big brass sections” mix two or three different trumpets playing the same thing and maybe slightly detune one of them. For trombones you can use the soft brass sections but don´t play too many notes at the same time. Listen to “real” arrangements and look at full scores what the brass is doing. Check out big band arrangements or classical compositions.
Long time ago I did the mistake using sections it sounds nice but not like the real thing. I learned by studying arrangements.

tuborg - 12 October 2016 05:53 PM

I will start to excause my bad english, I´m from Sweden. I understand your problem. But the issue is to play brass the right way. If you are using it in sequences, instead of using those “big brass sections” mix two or three different trumpets playing the same thing and maybe slightly detune one of them. For trombones you can use the soft brass sections but don´t play too many notes at the same time. Listen to “real” arrangements and look at full scores what the brass is doing. Check out big band arrangements or classical compositions.
Long time ago I did the mistake using sections it sounds nice but not like the real thing. I learned by studying arrangements.

Thanks for the info. Unfortunately, I am not sequencing anything. I am playing it all live on my midi controller, which is controlling my XF8, which has piano and clavinet layered with strings.

-Max

Mighty Motif Max - 13 October 2016 10:41 PM

tuborg - 12 October 2016 05:53 PM

I will start to excause my bad english, I´m from Sweden. I understand your problem. But the issue is to play brass the right way. If you are using it in sequences, instead of using those “big brass sections” mix two or three different trumpets playing the same thing and maybe slightly detune one of them. For trombones you can use the soft brass sections but don´t play too many notes at the same time. Listen to “real” arrangements and look at full scores what the brass is doing. Check out big band arrangements or classical compositions.
Long time ago I did the mistake using sections it sounds nice but not like the real thing. I learned by studying arrangements.

Thanks for the info. Unfortunately, I am not sequencing anything. I am playing it all live on my midi controller, which is controlling my XF8, which has piano and clavinet layered with strings.

-Max

Tuborg is right on the money. Most keyboard players
treat brass voices like they are an organ or accordion
sound. Real brass sections consist of individual
players, each one playing his/her own individual
chart. There is a lot of movement within the brass
section, it isnt eight guys all playing the same notes
or a chord. Brass instruments cant play chords.
Keyboard players play chords.

A brass ensemble waveform will be eight players (or
more) playing the same note. So if you play a two
note chord, you now have sixteen players. Play a
triad, you have 24 players. This is not how brass
sections work.

If you want a realistic brass section sound from a
keyboard, using one hand or two, you will not get it.
Ever. It will always sound like you are playing Van
Halen’’s “Jump” except with a sampled brass sound
instead of an analog synth brass sound. That is why
it sounds compressed and “canned”..because you
are playing back “canned” (recorded) sample
waveforms.

There are some things you can do..try making a layered
performance with two trumpets, a trombone, and a
tenor sax. Put them in their proper ranges. This
will help make it more of a pop jazz or funk brass
section. Try not to play more than two notes at a time
with this kind of performance

If you stil want an ensenble brass sound, try layering
french horns, one of the pop brass ensenble voices,
and a sawtooth synth brass voice in a performance.
The synth brass will give you some more of the
fatness and clarity you want. Set your velocity limits
so that the french horns come in first, the brass
ensemble at around 95, and the synth brass at around
118. So the sound will get bigger and brighter the
harder you play.

DavePolich - 15 October 2016 11:13 AM

…

Works well for me! Sounds great too. Thanks!

The only thing that I would like to have would be the sforzando effect. Thanks!

-Max

Dear experts. I am completely new to this forum and got hold of a used xf6. I had the same problems getting an acceptable brass sound for a funk pop cover band. Being an ignorant in editing on the motif I did buy some sound libraries from Easy sounds.. In the set “live instruments” there is a performance combining two brass sounds with af little string sound added. Turning down the string sound and reducing reverb gave an absolutely ok result. Of course this is not a very skilled advice but it might help you for a start

I am getting great results by sampling my own sounds..

Create ensemble sound as you want by using kontakt libraries and than resample that sound using John mela waveform editor and add that waveform in to Motif VOICE.
Normally I sample 2 to 3 layers of velocity of every 6th note (using keyrange -3 and +3) and I can say I am getting much better quality of sound than Motif on board sounds..

Thanks, KVT for sharing your workflow approach. ... Not sure if I’ll ever get to it, but I like having a sense of the many ways of approaching our Motif family keyboards.

kvt - 22 November 2016 02:54 AM

I am getting great results by sampling my own sounds..

Create ensemble sound as you want by using kontakt libraries and than resample that sound using John mela waveform editor and add that waveform in to Motif VOICE.
Normally I sample 2 to 3 layers of velocity of every 6th note (using keyrange -3 and +3) and I can say I am getting much better quality of sound than Motif on board sounds..

Interesting. I do not have any Kontakt products, but many people do, so this information is helpful.

I have worked a lot with the Velo Falls voice, and found that my adjusting the eq a good bit and layering it with another copy of itself, at an octave lower, I can get a reasonable result.

Dave Polich’s method works very well too.

-Max