Atelier Series Sasaki Trumpet is a legato trumpet library performed by session musician and educator, Mikio (Miki) Sasaki.
Recorded at Orb Studios in Austin, Texas – the goal was to create a responsive/snappy instrument full of energy, vibe and utility. One decision we made to help facilitate this goal was to record all of the material in a dry studio space. This way you have the option to really customize the sound before hitting it with your favorite reverb.
Part of the character of a trumpet performance is attributed to the style and quality of vibrato. We asked Miki to perform vibrato that could suit a variety of energetic contexts appropriately for each setup. We also recorded the legato in an "impulsive" fashion to capture transitions that are more contextually-relevant; suited for energetic lines with real movement.
Wind instruments (certainly brass) tend to share changes in intonation depending on dynamics, range and difficulty of a passage. We've provided two variations of each patch to give composers the option to include performances with their natural, internal tuning intact.
Lastly, we also recorded a wonderfully-emotive flugelhorn with an entirely different legato performance style and vibrato; suited for emotional and cinematic contexts. A real beaut.
What is the Atelier Series?
Oftentimes during the research and experimental phase of development, we’ll create instruments that don’t necessarily belong to a bigger, themed release. Instead of attempting to shoehorn them into a future release or trying to construct a comprehensive product around it, we decided to create the Atelier Series so that other composers can enjoy our explorations in sample development as well.
Mikio Sasaki, trumpet player, is a freelance musician based in central Texas and Instructor of Trumpet at Texas Lutheran University. He was previously a member of the venerable Saint Louis Brass and based in New York City as a freelance musician and Adjunct Lecturer and Brass Ensemble Director at Brooklyn College. He maintains an active performing schedule in addition to his activities as an accomplished arranger and a dedicated music educator.
Hailing from a family of classical, jazz, and bluegrass musicians, Mikio is a flexible performer with the ability to switch seamlessly between styles, classical, jazz, and beyond. He has enjoyed international and national performances with a wide variety of groups and festivals, including Saint Louis Brass Quintet, yMusic, Chamber Music Northwest, Paragon Ragtime Orchestra, American Pops Orchestra, San Antonio Symphony, Richmond Symphony, Broadway’s Matilda, and as a soloist with the Austin Symphony.
As a teaching artist, Mikio inspires students elementary to collegiate in their journey to musical fulfillment. He has worked with numerous teaching artist programs around New York, including the Music Advancement Program, Little Orchestra Society, Usdan Summer Camp for the Arts, and Juilliard Precollege. His recent appointments at Texas Lutheran University and Brooklyn College offered the opportunity to further his educational mission at the collegiate level, inspiring musicality and creativity in future generations.
Mikio is a doctoral candidate at The University of Texas at Austin, expecting to earn his Doctorate of Musical Arts in Spring of 2022. He earned his previous degrees at the Yale University School of Music (MM ’15) and the Juilliard School (BM ’13), studying under teachers Allan Dean, Mark Gould, Raymond Mase, and Ray Sasaki.
The “Natural” patch variations are great for solos that don’t share the same register as the accompaniment. The “Tuned” variation works well when doubling a melody line with other instruments in the same register. Definitely explore both options!
While we like the adjustable reverb chosen for this library, we would suggest turning it off and putting the trumpet through your favorite reverb plugin to give it a sense of presence/space that suits your track. For most of the demo tracks (save for the flugel), a small ambient room verb was mixed at around 30%. It really does come alive doing this.
To add extra realism and spice to your trumpet tracks, try riding the pitch wheel slightly upwards quickly during more “difficult” passages to imitate sharp pitch corrections.
