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I am using VSL Special Edition and I am trying to make a horn section play chords. What patch is best to use for this...Do I get the Epic Horns and just distribute the notes on the one track or load up 4 tracks and give each track a note seperatly or what is the best patch to use? My options are Horns Vienna, Horn Triple, Horn ensemble a4 and Horn Ensemble a8 (Epic Horns).
So are the ensembles better for unision playing by all 4 horns or should I still make 4 different tracks?
I've found that a8 is WAY too thick to play for chords. Those are too many horns flying around! I might try using Horn Triple for one or two of the notes in the chord, and a4 for the others. This will be a balance of thickness that might sound a little bit better?
If you have enough memory, you could throw the Vienna horn in there as well. However, I personally prefer the tone of the Triple.
Hope this helps,
Alex
EDIT: you could also simply load up a single "sus" patch, either Solo or a4, depending on your taste. You won't get the beautiful legato, but you'll have a polyphonic instrument. It would sound nicer, probably, to load 4 separate tracks of Horn triple, so that each line has the capability of playing legato.
If you were to load up a a4 patch, and you want to play a C chord for example, would you create a seperate track for all the notes or would you just simple play the C chord in the one track? The way I am doing it now is just loading up one track of a4 and playing the chords into one. I just want to know what is the best way to do it.
It may just be a matter of personal preference, but I would give each horn it's own seperate track. For one thing, in VSL, you can't play chords with the legato patch loaded up. Legato patches will only play monophonic.
Also, you have more choices to manipulate your section to add more randomness and give your horns some "life" so that they sound more natural. For example, you could slightly detune ( from 440 to 441 or 439) one or two of your horns and/or manipulate the attack and release times randomly for each horn. If you were to play a chord in one track then each instrument would have the exact same tunning, attack, release, etc.
Not to mention that you would be able to do more with your sequencer as far as panning, EQ and effects are concerned, eg one horn panned hard right another hard left etc.
Anyway that's how I would do it but to each his own I guess.
My biggest owrry was if I had an ensemble patch on all 4 tracks it would sound like there is too many players, So thank you for clearing that up for me. =)