How to read the range chart
Each row is one instrument at sounding pitch, on a keyboard axis from A0 to C8. The light bar is the full range, every note a professional can produce. The dark bar is the practical range, the notes you can write for a section you have never met and get back in one take.
Notes are named in scientific pitch notation, where middle C is C4. Cubase, Logic and Kontakt call that key C3 by default, so switch the checker to C3 if you are reading note names off your piano roll.
The chart makes one thing obvious that tables hide. Almost every instrument can play between C3 and C6, so in that middle band the choice of instrument and register decides how a cue sounds, not whether the note is available.
Checking a MIDI file against instrument ranges
- Export the cue from your DAW as a Standard MIDI File (.mid), with each instrument on its own track.
- Name each track after its instrument. "Violins 1", "Horns" and "Bass Clarinet" are all recognised.
- Drop the file onto the checker. Fix any part it guessed wrong with the menu in the report.
- Read the report. Notes beyond the practical range are worth a second look, and notes outside the full range need changing before the parts go out.
The check reads note pitches only. Keyswitches that sit outside an instrument's range will show up as out-of-range notes, so ignore any that are your library's articulation switches. To look at the file itself, open it in the MIDI player and viewer.
Where sample libraries go past real players
A library maps whatever its developer recorded, and every note costs the same effort. The top fifth of a trumpet's range plays as easily as the middle, at every dynamic, so a mockup can promise a passage no player will deliver. The orchestral mockup guide covers the rest of that list.
Write inside the practical range for a section you do not know, and treat the top fifth of any wind or brass range as a cost rather than a free note. When the cue becomes parts, the transposition chart gives the written pitch for every transposing instrument.
Range pages for each instrument
- Piccolo range: D5 to C8, practical D5 to A7
- Flute range: C4 to D7, practical C4 to A6
- Oboe range: B♭3 to G6, practical C4 to E♭6
- Clarinet range: D3 to B♭6, practical D3 to F6
- Bassoon range: B♭1 to E5, practical B♭1 to C5
- French horn range: B1 to F5, practical F2 to C5
- Trumpet range: E3 to B♭5, practical F3 to A♭5
- Trombone range: E2 to F5, practical E2 to B♭4
- Tuba range: D1 to F4, practical F1 to C4
- Timpani range: D2 to C4, practical D2 to A3
- Harp range: B0 to A♭7, practical C2 to C7
- Violin range: G3 to E7, practical G3 to A6
- Viola range: C3 to E6, practical C3 to A5
- Cello range: C2 to A5, practical C2 to E5
- Double bass range: E1 to D4, practical E1 to G3