The Hornet
This is a particularly unrealistic patch. It’s half way between a synth brass and trumpet. The initial sound has a more chorused synth brass effect then settles down into a single oscillator sound on sustained notes.
1: Use sawtooth waves.
2: Tune the oscillators to avoid beating, and have a slow chorusing effect.
3: VCO-B mixer level is being controlled by ENV-B. Notes will come start with a chorused effect that fades away on the sustain. This effect will be more pronounced on louder notes:
Patch VCO-B sawtooth to VCA-B in.
Give ENV-B a relatively slow attack.
Patch MIDI velocity to ENV-B rise, and set the slider to give a negative amount of modulation. Louder notes will have a faster attack. Softer notes will have a slower attack.
4: Brass instruments take a moment for the pitch to stabilize. To emulate this effect, use the slew limiter as a decay only envelope. Set the slew time just enough to make the initial attack inharmonic. Keep the amount of FM on VCO-A very subtle. Try it with positive and negative amounts of FM.
5: Simulate vibrato with coming in on sustained notes by control LFO rate with an inverted ENV-A. The LFO is slow when ENV-A is high. The LFO is fast when ENV-A is low. This causes a faster vibrato to come in after the note has begun.
Tuned to C4:
Further Reading
Gordon Reid delves into the fundamentals of synthesizing wind instruments, explaining the similarities between vibrating strings and air columns in pipes, and how to recreate them.
Synthesizing Brass Instruments
Explains the principles of synthesizing brass instruments, using subtractive synthesis to recreate realistic trumpet-like sounds.
Roland SH101 & ARP Axxe Brass Synthesis
How to synthesize brass sounds on simple monosynths like the Roland SH101 and ARP Axxe by adapting idealized brass patches to suit their more limited capabilities.
Gordon Reid demonstrates how to create brass patches on the Minimoog.
A YouTube video where Steve Porcaro demonstrates how to synthesize a synth brass lead by focusing on shaping the attack using sharp, transient "blip" envelopes on one oscillator.