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Swam Brass as a Horn Section
Hello, i Don`t own any Swam Apps yet. what do you think. It is possible to build some Tower of powerish Horn sections with these Apps? So if iI buy 2 Trumpets, a Sax and a Trombone each having their own Midi Tracks in Auria ? Does anyone have Experience Trying this?
Comments
Do you mean the quality of the sounds, or whether that combination of instruments will get you to the arrangements you have in mind?
Do you have an example of an arrangement?
This video has lots of examples of horn sections. I don't own the Swam app but I think they
could be used to make something similar if you know how to play phrases like horn players.
Yes, these horns I had in mind.
Don’t think they have a sax for iOS as yet..
These midi players/recorders (Helium, Atom 2, LK) are just waiting..
Hope for a sax....
There's a tenor sax in Geoshred that I think is made by Swam.
SWAM Woodwinds for iOS is coming soon...
If you are not averse to writing musical notation then StaffPad also comes with SATB saxophones as well as a variety of brass instruments. You will not get the same expression as the SWAM instruments but if you were not intending on performing the parts and were just going to manually sequence them then do consider StaffPad.
In my limited attempts to do horn arrangements with SWAM, the limiting factor has been my arrangement and willingness to spend some time practicing proper horn articulation. I think you could get a very credible horn section with a couple instance of the same SWAM trumpet with slightly different settings, a SWAM tenor trombone or two and the GeoSWAM Tenor sax. I think the sax needs the most work in terms of getting the articulations down.
I’d be inclined to play the parts using the included keyboard and record the audio rather than the MIDI.
The GeoShred Sax app is definitely SWAM and reasonably good. The apps have anti phasing channels so you can get more realistic combinations. I think it is more the skill of the creator that will bring a SWAM horn section to life. Don’t forget the Euphonium and Tuba!
Start with the available instruments that fit with a $60 investment
and try your ideas of MIDI. I think short notes will get you close to the rapid fire Tower of Power sound and then automate the volumes on the long notes with hard attacks and swells
through the held phase.
and wait for the SWAM sax... by then you'll have mastered the SWAM user interface and should get an intro price for the alto or tenor and the distinctive Tower of Power Baritone Sax... I'd start with the baritone and see how high they let you go into the tenor range or
even the alto.
Thanks. I will try.
Alto or bass trombone @McD ?
Bass trombone has a slightly larger bore than the standard "tenor". Get the tenor for the bright sound. The "alto" is a very rare toy between the sound of a trombone and a trumpet in range.
For Tower of Power you need Bb Trumpet, Tenor Trombone, and Baritone Sax for those
honking low notes. Adding a tenor sax is nice for rock solo's like you hear every week on Saturday Night Live. It's the horn for rock and roll when there's a nice growl.
I thought, I will use the Bb and C- trumpet together. The honking of the bariton- sax isn‘t so important for me.
Don't underestimate how much the saxes contribute to the funky staccato section sound. You'll notice when they're missing 😉
I know, I‘ m a Tower of power fan since 40 years. But 3 piece sections can work too.
You'd be wasting your money. The tone difference is so slight you won't notice the difference in my opinion. Better to get some think much bigger (Tuba) or smaller (Piccolo Trumpet) and hear a unique tone.
It looks like the classic Tower of Power horn section was:
If you like Tower of Power that tritone sax is key to their funk sound. The Baritone sax player is the legendary Doc Kupka:
Also, Bb and C trumpets don’t sound very different from each other compared to using two Bb trumpets an octave apart (which is not uncommon in brass arrangements).
Although I'm not as ambitious as trying to recreate ToP horn arrangements, I do aspire to have a good horn section. I started with the standalone SWAM Trumpet. There is a definite learning curve in getting realistic horn lines out of it, but once you get there it's nice. As an experiment, I used Polythemus (?) to divide up my keyboard chords and send them to different SWAM trumpet instances. It worked well. Looking forward to sax, etc.
The C Trumpet and the C Melody Sax exist so the musician can read off the piano
music and not have to transpose to to compensate for the Bb or Eb fundamental
which is either up a whole step or down a minor 3rd respectively. Very few of them
were made and sold but they are out there. If my dad ever saw one in a pawn shop he'd own
one or more but they never show up.
I assume you mean the C sax, as the C trumpet is prettty common.
Don’t try to get too complicated with chords though - most brass sections in pop music play in unison or octaves, with just the occasional foray into harmony. Just off the top of my head, I’d think that most of the harmony I hear is 7th chords, but a lot of it is all the same note.
Good point, and that means that maybe Nembrini Quinta is worth looking into.
I don‘ t need to have the whole TOP hornsection in my livingroom. Just a convincing one for funky tracks et c.
Jerry Hey led a great LA studio horn section for hire:
and the Brecker Brothers wrote the book on small but powerful horn's in the
first "Blood Sweat and Tears" band led by Al Kooper:
Have you considered Heavy Brass by Crudebyte or Horn Section HD by go independent? Although these are IAA and both older apps they were both made to measure for a ToP style horn section.
Heavy- Brass sounds not so good. I don‘t know Hornsection HD yet.
A trumpet and a tenor sax that are AUv3 will get it done. Trombone is an extra.