Samples sound great, there is no doubt about it.

But there are many nuances involved in recreating a convincing sax emulation that are more important than great tone. After all, what is great sax tone, Stan Getz, John Coltrane, Clarence Clemmons, Stanley Turrentine, Dexter Gordon, there are wide variations of sax tone, so different that a non-musician might not recognize them all as the same instrument.

More important that tone are the various nuances that a sax player puts into his/her performance. Nuances that define the sax expression and therefore define the nature of the instrument itself. Here are a few of them:

  • There are hundreds of different ways to start a note (articulate) on the saxophone, hard tongue, soft tongue, no tongue, sub-tone, etc., and combinations that allow the sax to speak things like "ta", "da", "fwa" etc. -- samplers can't do this, PM (Physical Modeling) can
  • A sax player adjusts the shape of his/her mouth to get different vowel sounds out of the sax, like ooh and aah -- samplers can't do this, PM can
  • A sax player adjusts both the depth and speed of the vibrato according to the needs of the song and the needs of any particular note in the song, sometimes varying one or both parameters over the length of the note -- samplers can't do this, PM can
  • Sax players can add either throat based growl or flutter tongue growl on a per-note basis or over a series of notes - samplers can't do this, PM can


There are many more, but these are the major ones.

So I tend to use samplers for background "sax quartet" sounds, and physical modeling synthesis for sax solo sounds.

As a sax player, I would never-ever use a sampler or sample based synth for solo work. It just can't create those nuances that define the saxophone itself.

Insights and incites by Notes

Bob "Notes" Norton smile Norton Music
https://www.nortonmusic.com

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