Sonuscore LUX Orchestral Brass

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

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. We took this approach because composers told us they wanted brass they would actually use.\n\n

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.\n\n

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.\n\n

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.\n\n

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.\n\n

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.\n\n

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.\n\n

In total, we 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, we 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.\n\n

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.\n\n

Auto Divisi Instruments

In a real brass section, players can perform in unison or divide naturally across multiple voices. Auto Divisi recreates this behaviour 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.\n\n

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.\n\n

S.A.T. – 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.\n\n

S.A.T. brings that fluid motion to LUX. 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.\n\n

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.\n\n

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.\n\n