HV Synth Design has released Total Brass, a new brass instrument plug-in that combines all HV's previously released brass instruments into one plug-in. The instruments are based on Harm Visser's self developed modeling method - Eclectic Acoustic Synthesis (EAS).

Total Brass features low and high brass instruments: from contrabass trombone to piccolo trumpet, from f-horn to a Dizzy Gillespie like jazz trumpet, without any compromise in the sound quality. There are 20 presets. You have total control over the most important brass aspects: Attack (mouth piece), player lips and you can even select a bore type: narrow/width.

Controls

The Performance row:

• Breath Pressure: you can choose between Modulation Wheel and Breath Controller. Here you can also set a threshold for more or less breath pressure.
• Attack for 'blowing' explosive attacks.
• Player Lips. Sometimes the lips are audible, a kind of short thrill. Trumpet players have told me that this has to do with imperfect blowing. Jazz players however make often use of this imperfection, to get a more aggressive tone. There are two knobs: Amount (MIDI learn) and duration of the lip thrill.
• Instability (long tones always have some instability).
• Breath noise (MIDI learn).
• Flutter Tongue - this is done with a rapid up and down movement of the tongue (MIDI learn).
• Portamento: you can choose between MIDI learn and velocity.
• Pistons or slide (selectable).

The Timbre row:

• Width Bore, Narrow Bore and Harmon mute (selectable).
• Note-to-note transition. When the note-to-note transition is audible (legato), then this is also imperfect playing, pressing a piston, when another one is not released in time. Again, jazz players make use of this.
• Damping: with this knob you can alter the bore structure, and so alter the timbre (MIDI learn).
• 4 stage EQ.
• Low Brass (loudness). With this knob you can add lots of extra harmonics and so also the loudness for low bass instruments. Here is also a relationship with the bore structures.
• Tuning.

The Bottom row:

• Pitch and amplitude vibrato via aftertouch or MIDI learn.
• Volume.
• Overblowing has to be done with the Pitch Wheel. Overblowing a trumpet and you start on a C than you hear always the harmonic series C E G Bb (C), but when you alter the bore (Damping), you get other series and effect.

Pricing & Availability

Priced at €139, Total Brass is available for Windows as a VST instrument plug-in.