Sonuscore LUX Orchestral Brass

True Dynamic Range, Pure Brass

With LUX Orchestral Brass, Sonuscore set out to keep the same spirit that made LUX Orchestral Strings popular with composers everywhere, while recognising that brass sections need something different.

LUX Orchestral Strings made composers feel like they were in the room with the musicians, LUX Orchestral Brass does this too, but focuses more on depth than on width.

Sonuscore took this approach because composers told us they wanted brass they would actually use.

LUX Orchestral Brass is not meant to be another "big Hollywood brass" library like many others.

Instead, it is made to work perfectly with LUX Orchestral Strings and one of the few libraries that records the full dynamic range instead of creating it artificially.

Features

• Full Orchestral Brass Section
• Key switch articulation sets for every musical context
• Up to Six Dynamic Layers
• Auto Divisi Instruments
• Six Mic Positions + Full Mix
• Seamless Articulation Transitioning
• Morphing articulations
• Adaptive articulations that switch automatically as you play
• Composer-Crafted ensembles with different voicing combinations

Punctuating Our Memories

Brass instruments have played a special role throughout history.

Horns signalled important events, like the arrival of royalty or the beginning of a battle.

Many celebrated classical pieces, from Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries to Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man, showcase unforgettable brass.

For decades, brass instruments have been central to some of the most memorable film scores.

The 1960 score for the iconic movie Spartacus stands out for its punctuating brass.

John Williams' opening of Star Wars is impossible to forget, thanks to its bold brass, while John Barry created an evocative theme in Out of Africa that features sweeping brass.

More recently, Hans Zimmer has used brass to add tension throughout modern classics like Gladiator and Inception.

Brass has a special role; the aim with LUX Orchestral Brass is to honor the heritage by giving composers an instrument to continue the tradition.

What Makes LUX Brass Special

Sonuscore asked working Hollywood composers what they actually reach for.

The answer wasn't a long list of special articulations.

It was sustain, legato, different marcato styles, staccato, staccatissimo, fortepiano and repetitions, all recorded with depth, consistency and wide dynamic range.

That's where the recording time went. Instead of adding countless special techniques, we focused on making the articulations composers use every day as good as possible.

Up to Six Dynamic Layers

From pp to fff, each one recorded separately.

All long articulations feature the full six layers, capturing how the character and timbre of real brass changes across the dynamic range.

Push the Mod Wheel and you hear more than a change in volume, you hear the instrument itself change.

One Room, Not Two Libraries

Strings and Brass share the same scoring stage, each in its natural orchestral position, with matching bleed mics and the same acoustic signature.

Working inside LUX means working in one real orchestral space, not combining two separate rooms in a mix.

Your brass changes character as you push the Mod Wheel and blends right away with LUX Strings, because both were recorded on the same stage.

Every swell feels performed and your mix feels complete.

The Full American Layout

Solo Horn, Horns a2 and a4. Solo Trumpet and Trumpets a3. Solo Tenor Trombone and Tenor Trombones a3. Bass Trombone. Bass and Contrabass Tuba. Cimbasso.

Auto-Divisi instruments with Polyphonic Legato for French Horns, Trumpets and Trombones.

Plus, an Ensemble Instrument for playing the whole section at once.

The layout composers expect from a classic Hollywood scoring session, not a partial set.

• 4 French Horns
• 3 Trumpets
• 3 Trombones
• 1 Bass Trombone
• 1 Tuba
• 1 Cimbasso

Comprehensive Bleed Microphones - Back By Demand

Bleed microphones were one of the most talked-about features in LUX Orchestral Strings, and composers were clear that we couldn't leave them out of Brass.

When something captures the true experience of a full orchestral scoring session this well, it earns its place across the range.

In total, Sonuscore set up 53 microphones for the Brass sessions.

22 were used for the main capture, with close, blumlein, tree and far mics across the brass sections.

On top of that, they added 31 close bleed microphones across the strings, woodwinds and percussion sections to record their natural spill into the brass.

This recreated the complete orchestral recording setup, with every mic you would expect to find on a professional scoring stage.

• 11 Close Mics
• 4 Mic Mids
• 3 Tree Mics
• 4 Far Mics
• 31 Bleed Mics

Resonance That Lives and Breathes

Choose how much of that natural spill you want in your mix, from just a touch of color to the full character of the scoring stage.

The result is bleed that does not feel like an added effect, but like the resonance and interplay of a real orchestra in the room and since brass and strings were recorded on the same stage, so they blend naturally from the first note.

Your orchestra sounds like one ensemble in one room.

The same principle that made it work in Strings, applied to a section where spill matters just as much.

A room full of brass does not exist in isolation.

What surrounds it shapes what you hear, and now you can dial that in for yourself.

Auto Divisi Instruments

In a real brass section, players can perform in unison or divide naturally across multiple voices. Auto Divisi recreates this behavior while always maintaining the original section size.

With four horns, for example, one note is played by all four players, two notes are played by two horns each, and four notes are played by one horn each.

Dedicated Auto Divisi Instruments are available for Horns, Trumpets, and Trombones, with a range of articulations to choose from.

Polyphonic Legato makes it possible to play naturally flowing chords and independent moving voices, while the engine continuously takes care of the player distribution.

Write anything from powerful unison lines to rich divided harmonies without manually splitting the section across multiple tracks.

Seamless Articulation Transitioning

S.A.T., carried over from LUX Orchestral Strings, allows seamless articulation changes within a held note.

Move naturally from Legato into Sustain or from Sustain into Espressivo without retriggering the note.

Move between articulations while holding a note, letting phrases evolve with the natural expressiveness of real performance.

A gentle key switch creates a gradual shift, a stronger one a quick change - giving you true instrumental flow at your fingertips.

S.A.T. gives you another way to shape a phrase as you play, creating smooth transitions between articulations without interrupting the performance.

Ensemble: Instant Voicing, No Waiting

The Ensemble Instrument is much more than a quick sketching tool.

Choose from ten different ensemble combinations, from Full Brass to selected section combinations such as Horns & Trumpets, and combine them with twelve different voicings designed for different musical situations.

Intelligent Note Selection distributes your MIDI input across the instruments, creating ready-orchestrated brass parts as you play.

This makes it easy to perform anything from broad brass pads and chords to themes, motifs and powerful fanfares, without building the orchestration instrument by instrument.

The Ensemble Instrument can be a fast way to develop an idea, but it is equally useful as a finished sound in your arrangement.

Choose a combination, select a voicing and articulation, and simply play.