As did the Renaissance Stadtpfeiffer, those highly-skilled and versatile wind instrument players, the Ensemble uses several different instrumental combinations to create a special authenticity of sound for each style and repertoire presented. The brilliant and penetrating shawms (ancestors of the oboe family, and the dominant wind instrument of the 15th and early 16th centuries) combine with the Renaissance trombone (sackbut) or its predecessor (slide trumpet) for a bright yet sonorous effect. The cornetto, an instrument combining elements of brass and woodwind technique, produces a uniquely expressive and vocal sound; it joins with sackbuts and/or dulzians (forerunners of today's bassoon family) in later repertories. In addition, the Ensemble plays a beautiful matched set of Renaissance recorders, producing a sound very much like a small organ.

A favorite of Boston audiences for many years, the Boston Shawm & Sackbut Ensemble has given concerts all over the United States, as well as at the Tage Alte Musik in Regensburg, Germany, and its members have all appeared and toured extensively with many of the world’s best-known early music ensembles. The Ensemble's sackbut players have provided the trombone section for such period-instrument groups as the Handel & Haydn Society, the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, and the Smithsonian Chamber Orchestra; they perform regularly with Boston Baroque, and can be heard on several of that orchestra's recordings, including sacred music of Mozart (Harmonia Mundi/USA), and their recordings for Telarc of Mozart's Requiem, the 1610 Vespers of Monteverdi, sacred music of the American Moravians, and Gluck’s Iphigénie en Touride. The Boston Shawm & Sackbut Ensemble can be heard on many recordings with the Boston Camerata on the Erato label, and various configurations and combinations of its players have made significant contributions to recordings by the Taverner Players with Andrew Parrott for EMI, and the Gabrieli Consort under Paul McCreesh's direction for DG Archiv.