Arturia and IRCAM (Institute for Music/Acoustic Research and Coordination -www.ircam.fr) have announced Brass, a software recreation of three wind instruments - a trumpet, a saxophone and a trombone - based on physical models. All the characteristics of the real instruments have been analyzed and modeled through mathematical algorithms.

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After five years of research at IRCAM, the models have reached a point where it would be hard for anyone to distinguish the original instruments from their software counterparts. Indeed, Brass allows you to play these instruments like experienced performers would - with the same control, the same flexibility and the same expression.

Brass can be used as a stand-alone software or as a virtual instrument for Windows and MacOS X. It comes loaded with more than 40 instrument presets and offers a large library of more than 1000 pre-written riffs in different musical styles. These riffs have been made by a selection of the most famous designers and arrangers in the industry.

Features:

• Virtual instrument playable through a MIDI keyboard.
• Three instruments available : Trumpet, Saxophone, Trombone 8 parameters to control the instruments in real time :
  1. Attack
  2. Pressure
  3. Pitch (for legatos, falls or expressivity)
  4. Timbre of the instruments
  5. Noise amount in the instrument sound
  6. Vibrato
  7. Position of the instrument toward the microphone
  8. Mute (for trumpet and trombone)
• Total MIDI control of each parameter through powerful settings, control sense and hardness.
• Independent automation of each parameter via a dedicated control window.
• Configuration of the instruments : 4 attack and 4 vibrato types, material, humanization.
• More than 1000 riff presets in all music styles.
• Easy and fast searching of riffs with the preset explorer.
• Up to 4 simultaneous instruments in a riff.
• Editable length, tempo and tune of each riff.
• Riff editing with the zoomable piano roll and independent parameter editing.
• Powerful editing options : solo, mute, 8 drawing tools.
• Import and export riff presets from and to MIDIfiles.
• Live playing of several riffs with the keyboard.
• Chorus mode for all instruments, up to 4 instruments unison section.
• Spatialization of the instruments in a configurable room.

Price and release dates are to be announced.