Berlin Brass - Muted Brass

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A new shade of brass

Played with a mute, brass instruments take on a whole new color. Berlin Muted Brass captures this color in the utmost detail, giving you a complete line-up of horns, trumpets, and trombones played with a variety of mutes in a variety of ways.

Designed specifically for layering with Berlin Brass and other brass libraries, this truly comprehensive celebration of the muted sound gives you exciting details and character for all your orchestral compositions.

Highlights:

• Adaptive Legato for all horns and trumpets.
• Three different types of mutes for trumpets, trombones and bass trombones.
• Horns 1 and 2, plus Horn Ensemble.
• Trumpets 1 and 2, plus Trumpet Ensemble.
• Trombones 1 and 2, plus Bass Trombone.
• Deep-sampled articulations.
• Tempo-synced 16th and triplet repetitions.
• Recorded at the Teldex Scoring Stage.

Solo instruments and ensembles

With this collection, we aimed to provide enough detail to allow you to create complex arrangements, and add the nuance of the muted sound to the widest possible range of compositions. So you get solo instruments for definition, with a choice of instruments (1 and 2) for convincing voicings. The ensembles are on hand to add character to more 'wide-screen' pieces.

About the sound

The sound of muted brass has long been a celebrated staple of classical orchestration, used by composers from Strauss and Stravinsky to John Williams and Bert Kaempfert. Muted brass adds a rich character to any brass ensemble, and while it's often associated with adding a humorous note, the raspy, edgy sound is capable of very much more.

Try adding a muted trumpet to a piece with two lead trumpets. Or try combining muted brass with woodwinds or percussion—tubular bells with muted marcatos, for example. Be prepared to discover nuances you weren't expecting.

Multiple mutes

You get three types of mutes to work with: The regular straight mutes, Harmon mutes, and effect mutes. You even get variants for the Harmon mutes, with the stem of the mute either all-in or half-in. The horns were recorded 'stopped', with the player holding their fist in the bell of the instrument.