I've had success with using loops in the past, and picked up Brass Elements and Phantom Horns a while back. They're grouped "James Brown", "Tower of Power", "Earth, Wind and Fire", "Reggae" and "Rock and Roll." Riffs are labeled along the lines of "R9B160EB" to indicate the tempo (160BPM) key (B Major) and style (Rock). Each is a small phrase that can be linked to other phrases. The assumption is that you'll be editing and transposing them in your DAW.

Most of the riffs in these collections are short little stabs, and there's not a lot of variety available. But for their purpose, they're a lot better than anything that I could come up with.

There are also segments to build solos from. There's not a huge variety to in the collections, but what's there can be used to really "sell" the part.

But... I haven't really had any call for using them... yet.

You might want to check out Greg Adam's Big Band Brass - it's the only "Big Band" set of loops that I've found, and it sound pretty good promising.

-- David Cuny
My virtual singer development blog

Vocal control, you say. Never heard of it. Is that some kind of ProTools thing?