Produced by Doug Rogers and Nick Phoenix, the first call top players in L.A. were recorded in both Studios 1 and 2 at EastWest's Hollywood studio complex by multiple Grammy award-winning engineer Moogie Canazio.

The Play 6 engine (AAX version 6.1.2 installed) that powers all the EW Play libraries opens with the Player displaying all the loadable libraries you may select from the Browser window and then mix and adjust effects in the Mixer window.

From my experience recording brass ensembles 'back in the day,' Play 6 allows me to carefully mix, blend and add reverb to the trumpets, bone and sax in just the right amount--it is crucial to how effective the ensemble works within a song.

For a Rock song I used three main articulations: Sustain (crescendo and diminuendo), Short (stabs, marcato and staccato) and Effects (falls and rips of various lengths). Mod Combo has instruments that combine multiple articulations and uses the Mod Wheel on your controller to switch or fade between them. Licks has whole riffs performed at 120 BPM while Phrases includes riffs at different tempos all indicated in their names.

I alternated playing between HP8 CresFast, CrestLng, and CrestMed variants in the Sustain folder and by double tracking, I could not have asked for any more dramatic, pad-like brass behind the track. They sounded super huge.

Next from the Short folder I added punches using HP8 Marc, Stabs, and Stac and these variations added to the realism. Lastly, I added one Effect: HP8 FallsMed for a kind of 'throwaway' sound at the end of the chorus.

This is all so much fun and I've only barely scratched the surface with HOLLYWOOD POP BRASS!

It is all possible here: from deep and detailed orchestrations to instant brass sweetening, EastWest HOLLYWOOD POP BRASS is available for purchase for $399 and as a free addition for all subscribers of EastWest's Composer Cloud.