Studio Horns in MainStage
The studio instruments are high-quality multisampled players that offer a collection of solo and grouped instrument presets. See Studio Bass, Studio Piano, and Studio Strings.
Studio Horns provides a collection of highly expressive single and section brass instruments. It has a simple, clean interface, with all main controls at hand. Additional controls enable you to customize Studio Horns to match your preferences and to work best with your controllers. See Studio Horns extended parameters.
Studio Horns instruments feature a large collection of samples that cover different playing styles, such as sustain, staccato, or falls. These playing styles, called articulations, are chosen in the plug-in header. You can also switch articulations remotely with keyswitches.
Default section and single instrument keyswitches are covered in Studio Horns keyswitch mapping.
If you’re new to using plug-ins in MainStage, see Add and remove plug-ins in MainStage.
Studio Horns parameters
Preset pop-up menu: Choose a solo or section instrument.
You can use MIDI channel events to control section instruments. If you want to play specific instruments in a section, you can send MIDI messages on their respective channels, then add a list of channel assignments. See Studio horns section MIDI channels.
Monophonic button: Turn on monophonic mode for solo instruments.
Auto Voice Split button: When on, chords played on the keyboard are automatically assigned to different instruments or instrument groups, or “voices” in the section.
Depending on the size and type of section, a voice can consist of one or multiple instruments. This mimics the distribution of notes (voicings) among players, based on what instrument group is best suited to a particular note range, for example. See Studio Horns extended parameters for details about additional Auto Voice Split functions.
Note: When Auto Voice Split is off, Horn section instruments that share a key range are layered, with all horns assigned to a key range played simultaneously.
Dynamics via CC button: Turn on to enable control of an instrument’s dynamics (soft-loud) and timbre in real time. Additional dynamic control and mapping functions are available in the extended parameters.
Last Played Articulation field: Displays the most recently used articulation. This may be different to the articulation shown in the plug-in header.
Auto Vibrato knob: Set the intensity of vibrato in the chosen sound. Further vibrato control is available in the extended parameters.
Humanize knob: Set the amount of random variation in the chosen sound. This emulates changes in embouchure by introducing small pitch and level fluctuations.
Volume knob: Set the output level of the instrument.
Attack knob: Set the amount of time it takes for the instrument to fade in, following a MIDI note on message.
Release knob: Set the amount of time it takes for the instrument to fade out, following a MIDI note off message.
Key Clicks knob: Set the level of key and pad noise for sections that contain saxophones and solo saxophone instruments.
Note: The Key Clicks knob isn’t shown for trumpet or trombone instruments.
