Bass Trombone sound

Discuss playback problems, including VST, Garritan, MIDI, etc.

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David Ward
Posts: 814
Joined: Thu Dec 01, 2016 4:48 pm
Finale Version: F 25.5 & 26.3
Operating System: Mac

Post by David Ward » Tue Jan 22, 2019 5:43 pm

I notice that the bass trombone that comes with GIFF is much brighter in sound than the tenor trombone in the same. Using the GIFF bass trombone allows the full low range without major tinkering of the arcane sfz files, but in my experience as a bass trombone player, the bass usually has a darker sound than the tenor.

There is a fair bit of individual variation: the instrumental sound is affected by, amongst other things, the variations in internal dimensions, shape, size & backbore of the mouthpiece; the shape of the leadpipe; the size of the instrument's slide bore (and whether single or dual bore); the point at which the bell begins to expand together with the rate and shape of that expansion; and the material of the bell (and sometimes main tuning slide), primarily whether it's of yellow brass (75% copper), gold brass (85% copper) or red brass (90%). That's just a start as the shape and texture of the player's lips and the height of the roof of his/her mouth might also affect the sound.

However, in whatever way all these add up, the bass trombone will still almost always sound darker than a tenor trombone; so why the reverse with GIFF?
Finale 25.5 & 26.3
Mac 10.13.6 & 10.14.6


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motet
Posts: 8227
Joined: Tue Dec 06, 2016 8:33 pm
Finale Version: 2014.5,2011,2005,27
Operating System: Windows

Post by motet » Tue Jan 22, 2019 6:05 pm

Ignorance?

sandalwood
Posts: 30
Joined: Tue Jan 03, 2017 5:04 pm
Finale Version: 2014.5- W10
Operating System: Windows

Post by sandalwood » Tue Jan 22, 2019 8:11 pm

I remember having had to use, for the same reason, a bass trombone soundfont (I believe it was a Sonatina Orchestra soundfont) I had brought as dowry when moving over to Finale, instead of the GPO one.

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