New Orleans style horn section

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markjazzbassist
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Re: New Orleans style horn section

Post by markjazzbassist » Mon May 06, 2019 6:21 am

Mark wrote:
Sat May 04, 2019 9:16 pm
How would you guys assemble a N'awlins Funeral Procession/Sally Army style brass section?
it's called a Second Line. Usually it's bass drum with splash cymbal they use as both ride/crash. Tuba, Trumpet, and then varying Bone, Sax, Clarinet, etc.

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Re: New Orleans style horn section

Post by Mark » Tue May 07, 2019 4:33 am

No, I mean the elements. Like... Two trumpets, trombone and tuba, maybe?
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Re: New Orleans style horn section

Post by markjazzbassist » Tue May 07, 2019 6:49 am

Mark wrote:
Tue May 07, 2019 4:33 am
No, I mean the elements. Like... Two trumpets, trombone and tuba, maybe?
there is no standard brass band setup. just put second line in youtube or brass band or jazz funeral to get a good idea. snare drum, tuba, bass drum, and then horns is the most basic. some add woodwinds, cowbell, and more percussion and more horns. some are stripped down. depends on what you can afford for the second line and who's available. when i lived in NOLA brass bands were just as fluid as cover bands with members in/out and subs being used constantly. Most basic would be bass drum, snare, tube, and i'd say a bone and a trumpet.

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Re: New Orleans style horn section

Post by cgarges » Wed Jun 19, 2019 8:07 am

For New Orleans, it's usually gonna be tuba, trumpet, trombone, then sax or clarinet. For soul, it's gonna be saxes and trumpets, MAYBE trombone. You can make whatever else work, but that's the basic "traditional" thing. I know a pretty great tuba and trombone player, so I would hire her, a trumpet player (and ask him to bring two horns), and a sax player who could bring alto and tenor and maybe a baritone. I'd have them do a suitable trio arrangement for the song and then if the ensemble needed to be bigger, I'd have them switch instruments and do another pass. If it winds up being a lot of passes with multiple parts weaving in and out of each other, I might put up two mics for each horn (ribbon and condenser) and switch between them to get the different horn lines standing apart from each other. This really helps when you have the same players playing the parts. So does having them detune and re-tune their instruments between parts. This helps avoid some of that weird phasey buildup that happens, especially when the trumpet player forgets to bring his second horn. I also might track "bass" or "low end" parts (tuba and Bari sax) separately. I might not.

If you have good players, they can do this all in the same room. With gobos in between them, you can usually even get away with punching parts. (Keep in mind that you're using the gobos to separate what gets to each mic, not the players themselves.) I usually put up room mics, but I often find that whatever bleed is there between all the close mics usually gives me enough "gel." Plus, if you have one person who is much louder or much quieter then the rest of the ensemble, the room mics aren't gonna be that useful, so listen for overall balance in the room mics alone.

Hope this helps.

Chris Garges
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Re: New Orleans style horn section

Post by Mark » Sun Jun 23, 2019 5:18 am

I was thinking of just getting them all around one omni mic and going straight to a single track :D
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Re: New Orleans style horn section

Post by I'm Painting Again » Sun Jun 23, 2019 5:53 am

Mark wrote:
Sun Jun 23, 2019 5:18 am
I was thinking of just getting them all around one omni mic and going straight to a single track :D
if I had to use one mic I'd prob not have them around it - recipe for disaster - place them at distances that mix them evenly into how far/close you want the final result to be overall - probably a medium kind of distance not too close not too far on average

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Re: New Orleans style horn section

Post by Mark » Sun Jun 23, 2019 12:06 pm

Cheers :D
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Re: New Orleans style horn section

Post by standup » Sat Feb 08, 2020 12:54 pm

I don't know if anyone will remember this thread. But we finally got this released.

We tracked trombone and trumpet together in the studio, then overdubbed tenor sax and clarinet later. Fun project. I was worried about meshing the tenor recorded in a seriously dead small space with the trombone/trumpet recorded in a huge room, but I think it worked out OK.

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Re: New Orleans style horn section

Post by vvv » Sat Feb 08, 2020 3:52 pm

Congrats!! Sounds great! 8)
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Re: New Orleans style horn section

Post by drumsound » Sun Feb 09, 2020 8:48 am

Fun. Sounds like it came together nicely!

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