Quote:

The problem with sax's and horns is midi synths. They along with guitars is the primary reason for Real Tracks being developed in the first place. Unlike the finger velocity on a keyboard that can be captured and played back via midi like Mac said, all the tonguing, slurs and such that horns players do cannot be captured by midi because I don't know if there's a controller that does all that so it can be captured. Even the best mega thousand dollar keyboards have mediocre sax's at best and that's using mod wheels and ribbon controllers to try to get a realistic sound out of the patch. I doubt a midi Supertrack sax would be very impressive. Straight trumpets and bones yeah, maybe but still no falls, slurs, blats, overtone screams, doights and all that cool stuff brass players can do.

Bob



Sorry Bob, I must strongly disagree.

There is nothing wrong with MIDI, only some synths and synth players. I use a physical modeling synth (Yamaha VL70-m) with a Yamaha WX5 controller and I can get the nuances of sax (scoops etc.), trumpet (including lip slurs), guitar (including hammer-ons & pull-offs) and a number of other instruments.

I have fooled professional trumpet players and guitar players into thinking I was playing trumpet and guitar when in reality I was playing synth.

It's about (1) having the right controller (2) having the right synthesizer (3) learning how to coax the proper nuances out of the synth with your controller.

My physical tenor sax is set up with a huge chambered/tip opening metal mouthpiece to play a big "Texas Tenor" sound (think Clarence Clemmons) and in order to have a nice mellow ballad sound, I would need to put my #6 Otto Link hard rubber mouthpiece on it, which will then have a dry reed, and require re-tuning the sax. Impractical to do in a live setting. So I play the wind synth with more mellow sax patches.

Check out This Link and This Link for some mellower sax sounds and for guitar sounds check out This Link and This one - Note: they were ripped at a low bit-rate so the tone is thin, but you can hear the nuances quite well.

These were done on a synth module that I paid $500 for.

Now tell me in all honesty that you can't do MIDI sax or guitar. You just need the skill and the right equipment.

Notes

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