Every instrument has it's intricacies. The physical and electrical nature of the instrument gives it it's own 'personality'.

It's not just tone, it's "What nuances can be created by the instrument itself?"

A good musician learns what the instrument he/she is playing can do, and then exploits those nuances to coax expression out of that instrument. Charlie Parker is credited with this quote, "You don't play the sax, you let the sax play you."

I think that goes for every musical instrument.

And it helps the synth player coax those expressions out of his/her synth if he/she tries to recreate them.

Play a sax patch like a piano or guitar, and it isn't going to sound right. This is a major problem with synth players saying 'the sax just doesn't sound right'. Often it is you aren't getting the nuances of the sax out of your synth.

For an analogy: Take one of those comedians that do impressions of the president and other famous people. Is their voice like the person they are 'doing'? Some aren't even close. But they capture the speech patterns, the pauses, the dynamics, the pitch changes, the articulation, etc., and if they do that well enough, they create a convincing impression.

I found the best synth for recreating sax sounds is the Yamaha VL70m. Admittedly, the tone isn't the best (samplers do it better), but the ability to recreate 'sax nature' is more than enough to make up for the difference.

I'm a sax player first, and I also play flute, wind synth, guitar, keyboard synth, bass, drums, and voice. My sax is set up with a mouthpiece that allows me to play a rock/blues 'dirty sax' sound. If I want something mellow, I'd have to take the brass mouthpiece with the large lay off, put the hard rubber mouthpiece on with a medium lay, wet a new harder reed to match that mouthpiece, and re-tune the sax. Impractical between songs. -- Same goes for a more edgy contemporary jazz sound, mouthpiece/reed/tuning/etc. So instead, I bring out the WX5 Wind MIDI controller and play a nice mellow or edgy contemporary jazz sax patch on the VL70m.

My advice to all synth players who want to emulate other instruments is to listen to them intently, figure out how they get their expression and try to recreate those nuances on your synth.

A few tips to get you started. Saxes like to scoop up to pitch a lot from below pitch. We also like to vary our vibrato speed and intensity according to the demands of the music and all the other things I mentioned above.

Guitarists like to bend notes up (although the good ones might hit a note a half step below and bend up to pitch). Guitar finger vibrato is from on pitch to above pitch and back. Guitarists can control sustain from mute with the palm of their hands to lengthy by using feedback and fx.

Trombonists like to tongue notes a lot unless using the slide for a portamento effect. All brass instruments tend to tongue notes a lot more than reeds.

Saxes and clarinets play faster than guitars, but only one note at a time. We can do glissandos which sound different from the guitar equivalent of slides.

There are countless nuances and ornaments that different instruments are capable of, and the more you listen, and the more you can figure out how to recreate them with your synth, the better job you can do with your emulation.

Here are a couple of sax emulations on a VL70m synth by me. The pitch changes, articulation, and dynamics give the synth sound 'sax nature'. And the fact that this patch gets brighter with higher continuous controller 2 levels (breath) makes the tonal differences more sax like.

These were recorded on a pre-iPod Archos Juke Box on the gig, so the tone is thin, upper midrange and highs are pronounced. The backing tracks are almost pure BiaB styles (I forget which ones or whether they were PGs or Mine).

http://www.nortonmusic.com/mp3/_sunshinesax.mp3

http://www.nortonmusic.com/mp3/_capecodsax.mp3

If I played these patches like a piano, they wouldn't sound like a saxophone at all.

Conversely, if I played a piano patch like a sax, it wouldn't sound like a piano at all.

Insights and incites by Notes

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

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