I created a symphony orchestra score featuring 12 French horns.
The problem is that in places where all these 12 horns sound in unison, the unison is too loud (as if 1 horn sounds with only x12 power).
How can I turn down the volume? Is there any established practice in Dorico to address this issue?
For example, I know that the Iconica Sketch VST plugin has a “Horns” instrument. But it would be illogical for one French horn to assign an instrument that implies the plural of the instrument. Or am I doing something wrong?
Please help me figure it out.
The same problem, by the way, exists with 8 trombones.
To get this to work you would need to either have access to a sample library containing sounds of 12 horns playing unisson or twelve virtual instruments of solo instruments and a lot of tweaking in order to have them sound perfect and avoid phasing issues… actually feasible, I have only gone up to 8 horns myself.
I used to teach this subject at university – it’s an interesting topic.
Take a section of 10 violins. Why don’t they sound 10 times as loud as one violin? It’s the difference between sound energy, sound pressure level (SPL), and how we hear. Our perception of loudness is logarithmic, not linear. While doubling the number of instruments increases sound power, it does not double perceived loudness.
While, in theory, two instruments might add 3dB compared to one instrument, in practice it will add less than 3dB. Measuring 10 violins with a sound meter shows that they typically add about 10dB in practice, effectively a doubling of perceived loudness.
In your case, all 12 horns are likely playing identical samples, meaning their sound waves are perfectly in sync. This does not happen in real life because players naturally introduce tiny timing and phase differences. On stage, some sound waves will reinforce others (constructive interference), while others partially cancel out (destructive interference).
Another factor is sound dispersion. A spread-out orchestra section spreads sound across a wide area, reducing perceived loudness at any single point. However, in your system, all 12 horns are coming from the same loudspeaker, focusing the sound in one place and making it seem much louder than a real horn section.
Having them all play the same sample also means that your 12 horns won’t sound as rich as 12 real horns because yours are all perfectly in tune – something that doesn’t happen (it’s called chorus effect).
I agree with the practical solution offer by others but you would get a more realistic sound by using a sample library that has real horn sections, possibly with multiple samples.
You might like to try silencing some of the horns for that particular passage. To do so, select the notes for perhaps 6 of the 12 horns then open the lower zone (Properties) and, in the Common section, enable Suppress playback.
To be fair, 12 horns in a real orchestra hall would get loud and overpowering pretty easily. Some of the biggest horn sections in repertoire I can think of have rarely exceeded 8 horns, and likely not more for practical reasons. Not to say you can’t use 12. Film scores sometimes have that many (though still rarely playing simultaneously).
If you’re using NotePerformer it would be simple enough to just set them all to ppp or so and/or adjust the faders in the mixer. If you’re using sample libraries, as others have said you’re going to be limited to how they recorded it, either soloists or in groups. If the library has round robins (which most likely they will), there may not still be enough round robins to go around to prevent the same sample from occuring 2 or 3 times, resulting in phasing. There’s other ways to fix this but I would honestly address it first through the orchestration and dynamics.
I’m not sure I understood you correctly.
In the sense of not using all the horns in this passage? How’s that? On the contrary, I need to use all the horns in this passage to get the appropriate surround sound.
I didn’t understand the dynamics either. I have dynamics already marked on all 12 horns, what other dynamics are you talking about?
If you’re using NotePerformer it would be simple enough to just set them all to ppp or so and/or adjust the faders in the mixer. If you’re using sample libraries, as others have said you’re going to be limited to how they recorded it, either soloists or in groups. If the library has round robins (which most likely they will), there may not still be enough round robins to go around to prevent the same sample from occuring 2 or 3 times, resulting in phasing. There’s other ways to fix this but I would honestly address it first through the orchestration and dynamics.
I don’t use the NotePerformer.
That’s what I was just thinking about. Dorico’s free VST features instruments with the sound of a horn section (in Iconica Sketch it’s called “Horns” and in HALion it’s called “Horns Tutti Combi”). Is it possible to make unison passages sound like these instruments? I suppose this should be possible, but the question is how exactly?
That is, how to make it so that when all 12 horns (either 6 horns or 4, i.e. at least 4 horns) sound in unison, this group automatically combines into one and takes the sound of these aforementioned VST instruments? I’m sure there should be such an opportunity. For example, it would be possible to set the settings for this sound library in such a way that when combining a certain number of instruments in unison, this particular sound was obtained.
Again, I’m not very good at this, and I might misinterpret something.
Reduce the the number of horns sounding, which equals lowering the volume level.
Have you looked at my suggestion (post no. 5 in this thread)?
Suppressing playback changes the selected notes to a lighter shade to give a visual indication that playback is suppressed.
Those notes will still print normally.
Only playback is affected.
That’s another way of saying give them a lower dynamic.
For example, if they are marked fortissimo change that to forte or mezzo-forte.
Whatever you do, do NOT reduce the dynamic. The sound of a horn playing fortissimo is completely different from one playing pianissimo. There are far more overtones in a ff note than in pp. Presumably you want that intense, brassy sound, which you will not get even with 100 horns playing pp.
As for the sound of 12 horns in a hall, my son and I both play french horn and we used to attend Horn Days in Worcester when there would be up to 30 horns all playing together. The British Horn Society run even bigger days. The sound is incredible!
This option is not suitable, because in this case, the staves are automatically divided into those with suppressed playback and those without it.
For example, take a look at the following:
Here I should have had 1 stave with horns 1-4. After I activated playback suppression, this stave automatically split into 2 staves, which I absolutely do not need.
So after all, it affects not only the playback, but ALSO THE ENGRAVING.
To test what you described, I created a score with 12 horns, with 3 custom condensing groups of 4 horns each. When I selected two of the horns in the first group and did Properties > Suppress playback, all 4 horns in that group still condensed onto only one staff.
You can see for yourself that you have two-stem notation instead of one-stem notation, because you suppressed the playback for the 3rd and 4th horns. There’s no way you can achieve single-stem notation.
Add articulation, dynamics, and other subtleties to this, and Dorico will eventually divide it into 2 staves.
I’ll take your word for it, as I have never found a need to do what you are trying to do.
There is probably a setting (in Layout Options or Engraving Options, or maybe in Manual Condensing Change) to achieve what you want. Other users with more experience in this area will hopefully be able to help you.
I have no more time to spend on this, but I need to say that it would have helped if you had mentioned that you wanted one-stem notation in the condensing. I might have been able to explore that. It is always of great assistance to those willing to help if an original poster can give as much detail as possible about what is wanted.
EDIT:
If this is what you want, (in Engrave mode) select the first note of the section and in Condensing Change do a Manual Condensing and make sure that all 4 Horns are in the up-stem voice.
