Muse Brass Reviews

A few days ago MuseSounds stopped working for me alltogether. It only lasted a few days and without tempering with any of it, I am able to use it again. But... Somehow the imbalances for the dynamics of the brass sounds got even worse. They were in fact sub-optimal before, but you could work around it with the tuner. Now you can't hear the trumpets properly, even if you put them on ff with the highest volume on the tuner. The trombones have always been too quiet. It also seemed like they were unproportionally louder with f in relation to its mf sound. With mf being not distinguishable from other sounds and f sounding like a pack of elephants. These sounds all in all suffer from the same weaknesses but with different low points.

This is a problem with the entire Muse Sounds collection, but it happens most often with this one. I often open a score only to find it has been erased from my computer, and when I check my files, it's impossible to locate. Although the Muse hub website claims it is downloaded and installed, it doesn't appear in MuseScore's mixer or indicate that I own it when I visit the Muse Sounds tab. In the past, this has forced me to download Muse Hub again many times, but this last time, doing this had no effect because I got an error message saying that "the file could not be downloaded because it already exists." I have also tried uninstalling and reinstalling both Muse Brass and MuseScore several times, but it also did nothing. This is not just an issue I've had, but one that others experience and report, only to be given basic and ineffectual advice in response. Besides how unreliable it is, it also just doesn't sound very good. Many range limitations shouldn't be there, such as the trumpet's high range and the tenor trombone's low range, and the tone quality is terrible. Additionally, there should be no reason that the horns are cracking notes. Just because bad players will often crack notes in performances doesn't mean I want to risk these cracked notes playing every time I select a note above a g above the staff. Not only do they crack, but they also play out of tune with a bad tone at loud dynamics. I especially notice this with the horns, but it also happens with high trumpet or the trombones. This bad tone persists when they decrescendo from playing loud, creating a staticky sound that sounds like all of the players suddenly got focal dystonia. As other reviews have said, there is also an annoying click at the ends of tuba notes, and I particularly noticed this in its high range. Finally, there aren't enough instruments. The fact that we got the cimbasso instead of a euphonium is ridiculous, and this exacerbates the tuba's clicking issues as we are forced to use a tuba sound to substitute over a much higher euphonium part. Why did we get instruments like the alto and bass flutes, and other auxiliary instruments in Muse Winds, but Muse Brass remains bare-bones? Aside from the cimbasso, an instrument used only in operas, and some supremely trashy sounding full sections, Muse Brass neglects to include anything more than the absolute minimum, with many of the more widespread instruments like the euphonium, flugelhorn, or piccolo trumpet, which are all used in ensembles such as chamber groups, jazz bands, and most importantly wind ensembles, being missing. MuseScore's basic soundfont may be unfathomably bad, even compared to Muse Brass, but at least it works. To offer a "fix" that's so unreliable for how mediocre it is, even when it's free, is simply bad business.

Well, it's free (for now…), so I won't complain. Is it perfect? No. Does it require tuning? Yes, but it's always been the case with Musescore, and it's so much more decent than what we used to have, so...

The tuba sometimes creates very annoying clicks after playing any notes that aren't accent. Please fix this.

Good sounds, but ensembles aren't good in playing fast staccatos.

i downloaded muse woodwind and percussion and they work but for some reason this one just doesn't work

Trombones are not very balanced when it comes to dynamics. For example I put it as mezzo-forte which is supposed to be a medium LOUD, and I still can't hear it that much when all the other instruments are playing.

Great, but there's no euphonium, and the dynamics are not good. Also, there's a weird cutoff sound on some notes on the tuba.

I really like Muse Brass! The sound quality and range of instruments are impressive. However, when it comes to writing for concert band, marching band, and jazz band, this pack feels a bit limited. You already have great jazz saxophones in Muse Woodwinds, so I would love to see jazz trumpets, flugelhorns, trombones, and bass trombones added. For concert band, it would be great to include a euphonium, Bb tuba, and Eb tuba. For marching band, adding a mellophone, baritone horn, and sousaphone would be beneficial. In terms of brass band, it would be fantastic to have cornets, bugles, flugelhorns, alto horns, baritone horns, euphoniums, Eb tubas, and Bb tubas. For orchestral works, it would also be nice to have a piccolo and bass trumpet included. These additions could significantly enhance Muse Brass and make it a more versatile tool for composers and arrangers.

not all balance, and also the sound of the trombones are not balance its like overplayed same as the french horns.

nothing to say here

The sounds are great; however, there's a few things that I find unusual about this sound pack. 1. Too much contrast between dynamics I noticed that whenever I have a crescendo from mezzo-forte to forte, it felt more like a crescendo from piano to fortissimo. It's pretty unrealistic, so I hope this gets changed in the next update. 2. The horns are louder than the trumpets From experience, at the same dynamic level, the trumpets are usually louder than the horns; I don't really know why that's not the case with this sound pack. 3. Too much legato Sometimes a passage just sounds like its played legato, even when I don't intend on putting a slur anywhere on that passage. 4. Euphonium when? We've been waiting for the euphonium to be added to Muse Brass ever since its release in 2022....

The muted brass should include different mutes (Straight, Harmon, etc.) and the section brass sounds have to share the same range as their solo counterparts for ultimate versatility along with new sounds like (Tuba section, Bass Trombone section, Cimbasso Section, etc).

I forgot where I read it, but the publishers do acknowledge that its all played in legato other than when you have staccatos. I don't know why they made this design choice, I can't use this for an even remotely fast fanfare.

Overall this is alright, but it has its quirks. Dynamics are very unstable, weird transpose ranges from solo to assemble, and the horns do not sound realistic. However, you can edit the sounds in the mixer to sort of fix the dynamics issue. It's decent, but decent is not good.

The sound is great but the dynamics are just almost terrible. the contrast is too much whenever you have a crescendo or dynamic change. Hopefully this will be fixed later on :) but otherwise is a great addition but I can't really use it because of the its dynamic changes.

nice sound with unbalanced dynamics, hope to fix it in the next update.

The solo and ensemble sounds are excellent on their own. The dynamics levels are not balanced, and very hard to arrange with. Specifically, solo trombone is inaudibly quiet at p or pp, barely there at mp, ok at mf, and blasting at mf or above. The range of instrumentation is also limited, I'd love to see Euphonium, Flugelhorn, and supported for various types of mutes.

I love the general quality of these MuseSounds, but there are still a few issues with playback. Anything quieter than forte is almost inaudible and extremely difficult to balance in the mix with other instruments. And there is only one type of mute available that is even quieter! Also, there is still no Euphonium included yet. I wish these problems had been fixed ages ago. Look forward to improvements in the near future!

Levels are totally out of whack. All brass instruments are really silent (just like real life, yeah?) compared to everything else. Playback is never quite on the beat, always a bit too loose and most of the time, note duration seems to be ignored. Although it is not part of muse Brass, muse Percussion is also unbalanced with some sounds being way louder than others.

In order to have a wide range of brass instruments, it is necessary to have instruments such as french horn, baritone (or euphonium). Please :)

the mellow but powerful Euphonium sound is not captured through the standard musescore sample. We need Euphoniums in here!

It has great instruments but PLEASE add baritones and euphoniums