Originally Posted by Ryszard
Notesy! Great to hear from you! Please see my answer to Matt to explain part of what has gone on with me/us. I got my wife the wind synth, but she hasn't had the opportunity to spend time with it. However, I am eternally grateful for your advice and direction on getting the thing. God willing, we SHALL make music together!

I also got her a nice late '60's Vito tenor sax, which was her instrument in school. We look forward to the time when I can sit her down with BIAB to get her chops back, and then we can blow some tunes together! That's the dream anyway.

When I left, you were doing some of the most advanced things imaginable with BIAB in a live performance context. Are you still gigging? You were playing with your wife, too, yeh? How are you guys?

Thanks,

R.
See this page for setting up the WX5 https://www.nortonmusic.com/wx5.html — it'll give the closest sax experience, so switching between the Vito and the WX should be easier.

If you can get one, I recommend the Yamaha VL70m Physical Modeling tone module, especially with the Patchman voices at patchmanmusic.com. It's the closest thing I've tried to make it feel like you are playing an actual instrument instead of triggering synth voices. I actually use a couple of the sax voices, even though I bring a tenor sax to the gig. My tenor/mouthpiece is set up for rock/blues and for cool school jazz or during quiet, dinner sets they are great. It's the only module I found that I've used for sax.

They are out of production, but used ones float around. Patchman often has one that he puts his voices in before selling.

And yes, we're gigging. We just picked up our 23rd gig this month, and we're doing two in one day. I know that's insane, but they are both long-time dependable customers, who have become like friends, and we couldn't turn them down.

Until mid-April, when the tourist season dies, we'll be doing at least 4 per week. Then in the summer it slows down. When the fishing is good—fish hard.

I don't use BiaB straight on the gig, but often use it to make my backing tracks. It depends on the song and the styles available. I use MIDI styles because I can edit them to my heart's desire, and make the end product even better than what comes out of the box. I can add signature licks, change chord inversions to complement the melody better, add, subtract or replace drum fills, add instrumental cues to keep us from getting lost in songs that don't change chord patterns, and so on.

Other songs need to be done from scratch. Since I play drums, bass, guitar, wind synth, and some keyboard synths (I'm not a pianist), I can reproduce songs close to the record if that's what we need. Having the sheet music helps, and I can get most anything popular on the net for a reasonable price. Full details on how I make and use the files on the gig can be found here https://www.nortonmusic.com/backing_tracks.html

I'm still making aftermarket styles and song collections for BiaB. I like to keep busy.

Right new we are redoing Fake Disk #2 which we released in the 1990s. There have been so many new styles to better interpret the songs, and we've gotten better at doing the disks since then, we want to make it better. It will be free to anyone who purchased the disk, because that's the right thing to do.

Other than that, nothing much new. Mrs. Notes and I are happy and healthy - anything else is extra.

Notes ♫

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

100% MIDI Super-Styles recorded by live, pro, studio musicians for a live groove
& Fake Disks for MIDI and/or RealTracks