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Sonare TRB-500/600, B&S eXquisite Trumpets: Responsive Horns<br />
With renowned designer Cliff Blackburn’s<br />
patented lead pipe design on all Sonaré professional<br />
trumpets since 2004, the brass and<br />
wind manufacturer began getting requests for<br />
a student horn that had some of the same<br />
components. The result is Sonaré’s TRB-<br />
500 and TRB-600 intermediate trumpets,<br />
featuring Blackburn-designed<br />
signature lead pipes and the MicroLok<br />
valve system.<br />
The MicroLok system sets the<br />
valve piston into alignment during<br />
the production process, then tightens<br />
it into place by a set screw. The<br />
alignment is permanent, but<br />
can be reset by a trained technician,<br />
without soldering.<br />
Cleaning and oiling will not<br />
disturb the setting. The difference<br />
is clearly noticeable: The<br />
horn slots beautifully, and<br />
even when you first play it, there’s a<br />
fluidity, a smooth feeling of air<br />
moving through the horn that gives<br />
a singing feeling. With the TRB-500<br />
model, I sometimes forgot I was<br />
playing on an intermediate horn.<br />
While I expected the horn to<br />
play well in a concert band setting,<br />
I was pleasantly surprised<br />
when I popped a lead mouthpiece<br />
into the TRB-500 for a big band<br />
gig. It generated a brilliant lead<br />
sound. For a student horn to offer this<br />
kind of versatility allows easy participation<br />
in various aspects of the school’s music<br />
program (concert band, orchestra or jazz<br />
ensemble), making it an excellent<br />
choice for a student musician. The<br />
TRB-500 and TRB-600 cost $899 and<br />
$999, respectively.<br />
TRB-500<br />
eXquisite<br />
The new handcrafted eXquisite B♭ trumpet is<br />
a product of the cooperation between<br />
German instrument manufacturer B&S and<br />
prolific L.A. studio recording artist Malcolm<br />
McNab, whose motion picture soundtrack<br />
credits number more than 1,500. The trumpet<br />
(also available in the key of C) features a handhammered<br />
one-piece yellow brass bell with<br />
French bead flat rim nickel silver outer slides<br />
and a 11.3 mm bore.<br />
Well balanced and lightweight, I expected a<br />
bright and brilliant sound from the eXquisite.<br />
Instead, the horn produced a surprisingly dark<br />
tone reminiscent of a much heavier trumpet.<br />
It seemed counterintuitive: I’ve come to<br />
expect that aspects of flexibility and<br />
agility are naturally sacrificed when<br />
seeking a darker-sounding horn. But<br />
B&S has dispelled this myth by creating<br />
an instrument that handles like a jazz- or<br />
pop-oriented horn while producing a<br />
more traditional orchestral sound.<br />
To counteract the medium bore of the<br />
eXquisite, I found myself wishing for a bigger<br />
mouthpiece, in an effort to emulate the<br />
more free-blowing horn to which I’ve<br />
become accustomed. The trumpet slots<br />
well, and intonation is very good in all registers.<br />
Overall, it sounds and blows like a<br />
heavier trumpet, but allows the freedom of<br />
movement like a lighter horn.<br />
The remarkable agility of the eXquisite<br />
B♭ is highlighted on McNab’s web site,<br />
where you can hear him play an excerpt<br />
of a transcription of a Tchaikovsky violin<br />
concerto arranged for trumpet. He starts<br />
from a low concert A and soars to the E-<br />
flat above the staff, and all the while<br />
the horn never loses its dark, centered<br />
quality and timbre.<br />
—Mike Pavlik<br />
» Ordering info: sonarewinds.com<br />
» Ordering info: b-and-s.com<br />
for groove and beat creation and manipulation.<br />
A new drum sampler called Groove<br />
Agent One is included with a few kits to start<br />
you off, but it can import Akai MPC files and<br />
sliced loops, as well as drag-and-drop functionality<br />
with WAVs and AIFFs from your hard<br />
drive. It has a clean and simple interface and<br />
has dedicated controls<br />
for all the<br />
parameters you<br />
would expect on<br />
each pad. Beat<br />
Designer is a sophistcated<br />
step<br />
sequencer with<br />
multiple patten<br />
slots. It makes it<br />
intuitive to humanize<br />
your grooves, and then drag the MIDI file<br />
directly to a track—it makes drum programming<br />
go much faster and easier. Lastly, there<br />
is LoopMash, which will randomly resequence<br />
any number of loops that you drag<br />
into it on the fly with various options for parameter<br />
shifts.<br />
Added to these major enhancements are a<br />
long list of smaller ones, including full support<br />
for the VST3 spec, a nice convolution<br />
reverb plug called Reverence, a redesigned<br />
and optimized automation system, and an<br />
onscreen virtual keyboard. All of this adds up<br />
to a really great upgrade. There’s something<br />
here for everyone, but Steinberg was still<br />
able to maintain the program’s ease of use<br />
despite the plethora of new features. Version<br />
5 is a worthy child of the venerable Cubase<br />
family, and should keep it in the top echelons<br />
of music production software for the forseeable<br />
future. I highly recommend it as an<br />
upgrade, and as a great DAW for new purchasers.<br />
—Chris Neville<br />
»<br />
Ordering info: steinberg.net<br />
November 2009 DOWNBEAT 35
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