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I'm sure this has been addressed many times, but as we all know, search sucks.

 

Anyway, I am dusting off the old horn and looking to get back into playing, possible in a rock/alt setting and want to investigate applying some effects to my signal.

 

I have a handful of stomp boxes (autowah, fuzz, chorus, compressor) but was thinking a multi-effects unit might make the most sense.

 

What effects work well in a live setting? I expect an autowah, delay, chorus, reverb make sense. OD/dist/fuzz seem like they may work, but might be a little overbearing.

 

Thoughts/experiences?

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Obviously, you'll want to run them through the FX Loop on the PA rather than horn-mic-FX-PA. They work much better this way.

 

Distortion can work. Indofunk has said that using a Yamaha Silent Brass line out is the best way to distort a trumpet. I think I recall that you are a trumpeter?

 

As for what works well, it depends on your style and music, but you can always add some reverb to warm up your sound. Randy Brecker used an envelope filter to nice effect on "Some Skunk Funk," and if you have some major control over your playing you can get some very cool effects with one.

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Good Evening! I'm seeing what you're typing and looking at your avatar, seeing sunburstbasser typing trumpeter, and I'm afraid to make a suggestion, thinking you got some tricky avatar that will turn and hollow-graphically reach out to swat me, or wrap the chain around my head and drag me into some sub-symphonic world evolving under rock.

 

What kind of mute are you using? Most of the response I get in my thread would tell me to use the rubber from a toilet bowl plunger. I was in the Dollar Store and saw some little florescent orange safety pylons that made me think of a mute for a trumpet and a bigger horn. I'd toss in a couple metal Spiderman action figures into a sax bell just to add some nasty jangle to those mids. Why Spiderman and not The Hulk or The Fairy Princess? I thought the Spiderman figurines would work like shaking jacks in your hand, all arms and legs, and the others were more solid-bodied and would clunk around. If it wasn't for one of the girls there coming up to me to talk, I might have been consumed by more acoustic thoughts, and started blowing something through the holes in the fingers of the life-size plastic troll lawn ornaments, thinking the open mouths and holes for wiring would give me something to blow through.

 

One thing I think would be a natural for any horn player today would be stretching some kind of membrane over the horn, like maybe a condom, where you had to play hard and blow hard to puff it up and made your reputation popping it, after several attempts. Trumpeters blowing them up with a reserve of spit all over the front row could be a hot thing. A tuba player better be careful, as losing pressure and inhaling the balloon could create a semi-back-blast, a new acoustic phenomena.

 

When I was looking at the rubber and synthetic gloves at The Dollar Mart, I was thinking you could stretch one of those over the bell, and cutting the fingertips off, let them puff up and wiggle around as the air escapes, making semi-flatulent sounds or pin-hole squeals, a different pitch for each finger.

 

If you cut the bottom off the soft, rubber-like torso of the fat gringo pineta,

you could do the same thing with it, getting ten toe-nals.

 

Drill some holes here and there and put rivets in like drummer's cymbals.

or use some piercings you don't wear no more.

or ear-rings and studs you made off with on vacation in Egypt

hitch-hike through the Andes looking for some, uh, ancient crystal, uh, skulls,

and install pieces of it like stained glass around the bell,

start posting you've got a semi-crystal-bell trumpet

and say you're afraid to play it in the moonlight because...

then post pictures of it with rays shooting from the eyes

and get some free publicity by getting busted big time

shooting it into the windshield of passenger jets

and the orbiting space station

 

This is the forum that's going to get me in trouble. All these unused field potentials, no-one really classical posting here, although I haven't looked that much, and I'll get put down for typing here when I could be making a video of my guitar.

 

And I don't know how much dust you're knocking off that horn, but did you ever hear that Miles Davis "hip-hop" C.D. about ten years ago? Where he's playing with some deep groove producers? I've never lost interest in hearing that. It's mostly instrumental with chants and some lines and every track is like a song waiting to happen.

Yeah, come-on-Miles, you'gotta'gimme'that trip-hop-sound.

 

as always, John Watt

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Hey John,

 

Regarding "that Miles Davis "hip-hop" C.D. about ten years ago".

 

You must be referring to Miles Davis: The Doo-Bop Song recorded in 1991. On that album he collaborated with a hip-hop producer named Easy Mo Bee. It was Miles's last album. I have never lost interest in listening to it as well. My favorite track off of it is Duke Booty. I'm a huge fan of his... so moved by much of his work.

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octave dividers can be a lot of fun on brass (haven't tried pitch shifters on a horn, but something like the ehx HOG might be fun)

 

filters (wah, etc) can be nice and horns have enough spectral density for the filter to grab onto - don't forget radical EQing too

 

delay and reverb can be cool

 

one great little pedal I think is the old boss HF-2 (hi band flanger) it basically ilters and only flanges the upper frequencies -- so you get some nice animation without digging the guts out of a sound (this is a decently common approach on "Bass effects" as well)

 

"life at night" comes to mind in terms of treated trumpet

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y-o-y! Okay, I don't blame you for a semi-half-hearted thanks. But you know what got me going?

Your avatar, the guy with the muscles that exploded.

When I was in high school I wanted to learn French Horn, but the teacher thought my lips were too puffy.

He didn't think I'd be able to develop an umberture that would take me into the future with it.

Since I was back after being a drop-out playing guitar, I went to Toronto where I had lived

and went to pawn shops and bought a nice trumpet, not the cornets the school let us use.

This frustrated me. I could play faster high to low, not the other way, and after half an hour got a headache.

I still wish I could play trumpet for real, not just my hand and mouth imitation.

 

Unfortunately, most of those suggestions are real for me, more for stage, but they could happen.

The first electronic effect I'd use is a phase shifter, even an old MXR 45 or 90.

They work really nice plugging your mike into it and then to the P.A.,

something you got for your own fingers and feet.

 

Brocko! Yeah, that Miles album is too smooth.

I bought Jimi's "Are You Experienced", "In a Silent Way" and "Bitches Brew" the same shopping trip.

Looking back, I certainly got off to a good start with my new Stratocaster, Marshall and effects.

I was in a long, thin jazz bar in Toronto one night with some musician friends, and that Miles Davis album was playing, years later.

I started singing along, moving a little, and did some trumpet imitations, and had a real nice time.

Jazz music is a world that either opens to you, or you're introduced to it, so much strong musicianship.

Don't think my previous, muscle-bound posting is all where I'm at.

I have a huge respect for any musician playing notes out of his head, not using a fretboard.

The sound of a trumpet or sax coming out of a window in a wide alley, represents big cities to me.

 

as always, John Watt

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I'm sure this has been addressed many times, but as we all know, search sucks.


Anyway, I am dusting off the old horn and looking to get back into playing, possible in a rock/alt setting and want to investigate applying some effects to my signal.


I have a handful of stomp boxes (autowah, fuzz, chorus, compressor) but was thinking a multi-effects unit might make the most sense.


What effects work well in a live setting? I expect an autowah, delay, chorus, reverb make sense. OD/dist/fuzz seem like they may work, but might be a little overbearing.


Thoughts/experiences?

I just got on here and have a Yamaha ST5 with the MC7 mic it is great for live work.. I play mostly an EWI and it wont work but the one test I did on my sax it was cool..HOWEVEZR I already had gear for my sax stuff..check out the Silent Brass, personal Studio ST5 if intrested I have a brand new set I need to get rid of..:thu:

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