What happens with the modern Bb Trumpet is not related to another temperament.

Many of the notes will be in tune with the Tempered Scale.

However, a few particular notes will not, due to the nature of the instrument's design. A good player uses a trained ear to move those notes to their proper place, for example, Classical players will often use 1st or 3rd valve slide to compensate, while Jazz players will use their embouchure, their facial muscles and air pressure, to do the same.

At any rate, it creates a beauty to the instrument, a color, if you will, that is lacking in any sampler/synth situation.

But there's more, a lot more.

Slurring with fixed samples that have a set number (usually one) of ADSR's available. This is another dead giveaway, I don't care how fast you play the keyboard or how you try to play with a style that overlaps the notes into a blur, it has a completely different sound than the real wind instrument player achieves by simply holding the column of air while fingering through the desired notes.

Yes, it is indeed true that the art of MIDI illusion -- and it is nothing more than trying to create an illusion of the real thing -- is subjective. As I've often typed around the internet, MIDI Patches sound great to those who don't play the particular instrument but not so great to those who actually play that instrument. I think Guitar Players are the most prolific complainers about MIDI Patches and Guitar sounds and that one in particular is understood by the largest sampling out of the group, even horn players and pisnists don't particularly fall in love with most of the MIDI Guitar patches out there for this reason. Much of it is in the same situation as for the horns, articulation giveaways abound. No Hammer-On or Pulloff ability translates to the same sort of problem as the wind instrument slurring and tonguing choices.

This is not to knock MIDI performance. I do it almost every day on keyboards.

There is even something to be said for working hard to pull the illusion off better than the next guy, certainly.


--Mac


--Mac