I’m working on something a little funkier than normal (at least for an old guy) that needs some James Brown horns. I do have a DX7 VST that’s okay, but the horns all seem to swell in instead of stabbing with short 16th notes. Anybody have anything that will work well in Reaper? Free or cheap would be great, the Dexed DX 7 VST is good for most of what I use it for.
Thanks,
The Artist formerly known as
Styles Bitchley
A really good option is the https://www.spitfireaudio.com/shop/a-z/bbc-symphony-orchestra-discover/
if you go to that sight you will see an add to cart button and a link for or free below it. There are some great horns in that package and it is a really good set of instruments to have around.
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Thanks, I’ll check it out and hopefully be funkafying soon.
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I’d love to see the visual representation (graphic, symbol) for that (i.e. Prince). I always thought of the StylesBitchley archetype as some version of “the most interesting man in the world”. He styles. And he styles … bitchley (kind of like “bitchin’” in California-speak). One of the greatest names anybody could ever pick.
As to horns, I have a minimalist version of IK’s Miroslav Philharmonik 2, which has lots of orchestral instruments. I haven’t used it a lot, and it wasn’t free, but isn’t the full version. This may prompt me to check back into it, as horns came up for me the other day in a moment of inspirational serendipity. Nothing productive, just a daydream basically.
Perhaps it’s something you can outsource by posting the track and see if anybody can propose a workable sound? The community may already have these resources is what I’m saying.
Wish I could claim coming up with the name, but it is actually a Rodney Dangerfield reference from one of his live albums. Can’t remember exactly what he said, but it may have been “Thanks to my manager, Styles Bitchley for getting me the gig, and Sonya. She’s outside painting the bus”.
If anyone wants to put a horn track on for me, I’ll try to get a demo on here soon and explain what I’m looking for.
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I have some horns, I’ll try it.
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Excellent! A comic genius. I always thought he deserved some respect. 
I kept thinking you may want to upload a MIDI file for horns also, something you played with is close to your vision. It doesn’t have to be perfect, and may change based on the instrumentation, but would give a starting place for someone to load in their DAW and get after it. Just the notes and arrangement, a basic start.
Thanks for pointing that out. I have an actual hardware DX7 that still works, and a good Virtual Instrument version of it as well, so it will be interesting to see what this can do. The reviews seem to be pretty good on it, and recent too (not 10 years old). Here’s where I found it. I hope the presets are decent, as that’s a lot of knobs to tweak. 
Or just play it on guitar or whatever.
Edit: Then we can make a midi file with @StylesBitchley’s part and share it around to try out different libraries. Then maybe a . . . mixing contest? 
I don’t think we can upload midi on IRD though.
I downloaded the Horn Fields and they sound good. They are a little more ambient than I was hoping, but you can edit them in MIDI to make them pop a bit better. Is there another group in there to try? I saw the orchestral collection, but didn’t see the free stuff. I’ll keep searching.
yeah have to push the link that i circled in green and then you fill in a form and I think you have to wait for 5 days or so but it is totally worth it for all that you get. Once you have it you can control the amount of reverb if any long or staccato notes, etc.
Thanks Eric, I’ll give that a shot.
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Here’s a rough idea of what I’m going for with the horns. There’s no drum track yet (obviously) but I like the placement of the background vocals, so the horn part I’m looking for would need to be in the little holes around them, if that makes sense. There is a horn track in there if you listen hard enough, but someone who know how to orchestrate might have more fun with it. Thanks.
PS added 2nd rough to bring horn part out a little
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Cool track @StylesBitchley ; horns should add to it but it sounds good as is! If you could post the track that has just the horn part I can do a midi conversion and we could share that. Otherwise I’d have to transcribe it which works too but takes longer.
Edit: Need bpm too please.
90 BPM. I’m doing some editing on the MIDI track, when it’s done I’ll get you access.
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Wanted to let you know I installed Spitfire, and it sounds great! It takes some time to play it properly, and I’m trying to get the sound of the room out of it, but with some simple editing after the fact it sounds very good, so thanks for the suggestion.
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Awesome. I glad to hear that.