New Physical Modeling Brass Instrument from Arturia

Apr 13, 2005

Arturia has announced Brass, a virtual instrument based on physical modeling that provides trumpet, trombone, and saxophone sounds. Developed in partnership with the IRCAM research institution, Brass is designed with real-time performance in mind, providing control over multiple parameters to enable realistic performances.

In "Live" mode, Brass is a ready-to-play instrument. Create your instrument (try an instrument made of wood, or add a mute) or choose a preset, assign MIDI controllers to the various parameters you want to control, and play.

There's also "Riff" mode, intended to simplify the process of creating instrument runs. A library of musical phrases in included which can be tweaked and then triggered by a sequencer or MIDI keyboard. The tempo will synchronize with a host and the riffs can be edited in real-time.

• Three instruments available : Trumpet, Saxophone, Trombone
• 8 parameters to control the instruments in real time
• Attack
• Pressure
• Pitch (for legatos, falls or expressivity)
• Timbre of the instruments
• Noise amount in the instrument sound
• Vibrato
• Position of the instrument toward the microphone
• 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
• Instruments Configuration options : 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 MIDI files
• 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

Brass will be available for Mac OS X and Windows, supporting standalone operation and multiple plug-in formats: VST, DXi, RTAS, HTDM, and Audio Units.

For more information, visit their web site at www.arturia.com.