Here's what you can do with an EWI-USB or EWI-4000s Wind controller and some of the fantastic samplemodeling sounds. They just released Clarinet, but I haven't tried it yet. The clarinet in my samples is a real one recorded using a microphone, everything else is BnBox and Samplemodeling.

My Heart Belongs to Daddy [Rhumba] (smTenor Sax)
http://soundcloud.com/dstong/my-heart-belongs-to-daddy-by

So In Love [Bolero] (smTrumpet)
http://soundcloud.com/dstong/so-in-love-by-cole-porter

Someone to Light Up My Life [Bossa Nova] (French Horn)
http://soundcloud.com/dstong/someone-to-light-up-my-life-by

Django's Manoir de Mes Reves [Gypsy Jazz] (French Horn)
http://soundcloud.com/dstong/manoir-de-mes-reves-by-django

All the Way [Bossa Nova] (French Horn)
http://soundcloud.com/dstong/all-the-way-by-j-van-heusen-s

For me there is no question that these synth samples are in league all by themselves -nothing comes closer to the real thing with respect to tone, dynamic harmonic richness, and responsiveness.

Very cool.

I think the samples are great, but for me it's a bit 'busy'.

I know jazz these days seems to be about virtuosity, however I like implied notes, and the smooth stuff.

I am however on the down side of 60, and that seems to make a difference.

Keep up the great work. I'll give them all a listen. As I tell my little vocal students, try to dream the words, shout a whisper at times.

That said I struggle to voice the piano the way I'd want to hear it, rather than fire off tones that in the end, are not really part of the words. I guess we all have our system.

The above is just MY opinion. You put the work into it, and if it makes you happy with the end result, ignore the ramblings of this old guy.

Thanks for posting those. I enjoyed listening to them and they inspired me to get out my ewi-usb which I'm barely learning. I'm a trumpet player in real life. Not sure which horn you selected for the trumpet on the bolero number. I always seem to want to use my cornet and/or flugel on bossa numbers. I like less "edge", but we are all different. Nice job on those pieces, Dan.

Stan

John,

Thanks for your comments. I appreciate your suggestions, so please feel free to suggest style improvements as you listen to individual pieces. Be as specific as you please.

I haven't been visiting the Forums much so I have not heard about your state of health. Have you pretty much gotten back your "wind" ?

Thanks,

Dan

Shastastan,

I'm delighted that you are inspired to get out your EWI-USB, that was my main reason for posting. It is so much fun playing an instrument that has responsive high quality sounds especially with the improvements that BnBox Real Tracks bring to the accompaniment that I want more people to know about Wind Controllers and the excellent samplemodeling instruments.

I think I used Trumpet2 for "So In Love", if that is the piece you are talking about. I also like the Flugelhorn, which I have to play with less force to get it to sound more mellow. I often use the Flugelhorn for Bossa Nova pieces, for the same reason you gave. In my hands I don't get a very different sound with the Cornet sample, but I need to use it more to learn to hear the more subtle differences in it's sound.

I think that the Bolero Real Track is one of the most beautiful of all the newest styles, no?

Are you using the Brass fingering or the Flute/Sax fingering on your EWI?

Dan, I have numerous albums by Chris Botti. I love his style, but realize that there must be some great recording tricks in many of his tracks. That said the tone and the sparse notation give me a great experience.

All music is affected to each individual based on their listening experience and background.

This means kids into heavy metal will not be pleased with smooth jazz, and vice is versa (2?). Add and a von and a two an a tree...

So I have certain tastes that might go against the grain.

My wife and I went to the Jazz at the Lincoln Centre show, and there was great virtuosity. The virtuosity got in the way of the heart of the music, it was more a show off thing for each of the 15 members. I left with an overall ambivalent attitude. Yes they could play, and it was packed full of complicated runs and motifs. But it was hard to recognize the actual piece, at times it was buried so deep it was impossible to say which thing they were even playing. This statement from them is astounding. Jazz equals Democracy? That's presumptuous in the extreme.

"We believe that Jazz is a metaphor for Democracy. Because jazz is improvisational, it celebrates personal freedom and promotes individual expression. Because jazz is swinging, it dedicates that freedom to finding and maintaining common ground with others. And because jazz is rooted in the blues, it inspires us to face adversity with persistent optimism."

Who we are is interpretive.

At the end of the day, each phrase in an improvisation should have meaning, and be expressive on it's own, standing as a statement, articulated by the author, and interpreted by the listener as intended when it was played. Thus the musician must understand the audience and use their instrument to inspire. That becomes a very complicated matter. Three octaves on a trumpet over a 3rd minor diminished means what??? I'm often unsure. And what if the listener has a very limited history and scope?? Another can of the proverbial fish bait.

All that said, I love sparse. Play 2 bars, make it sparkle. Leave it hang, and then feed me again.

Wow, the thyroid medications have lifted a huge fog that hung over me for 3 years. I can read again. I can be complex and play inside. Now if only I found the time to get out the EWI in lieu of the Euphonium or Piano(s)/Organs and progress with it, trumpet fingerings only...

Have at it, play every phrase with the weight on your shoulders, but I'm not sure you'll communicate Democracy in an election year. Perhaps RE-publish-can-ism?

Perhaps I should interpret the Musical Joke...M. Mozart might like it.

Play in the key of life, or B natural.

Very impressive indeed!

I concur that Samplemodeling’s instruments are the most realistic sounding instruments. Someday I will have enough money set aside to purchase them.

How do you like the Swain engine? Is it better than Kontakt? I am a little leery of buying the Sax brothers if sometime in the near future they will be converted to the Swain engine.

I am a hacker on the EWI-USB. Like Stan I use the brass fingerings. However you sound like you have played the clarinet and possible the sax for years. You really sound great on these songs.

Thanx for inspiring me.

Hey John C,

I always get a kick out of your posts. I laugh a lot. I think you will find me much in agreement about your experience at Lincoln Center. As much as I envy the technical virtuosity of a lot of musicians, I find it boring and more akin to being a virtuoso on scale exercises, and not just because it is my greatest weakness.
I very much enjoy fewer notes such as the style of Miles Davis and Chet Baker, that immediately comes to mind). It is, just as in writing, far more difficult, to say something with fewer words. I'll be making an attempt to do so.

I'm very happy that you are much better, health-wise! Grab that EWI and show us what a real F. Horn player can do with it.

Thanks,

Dan

Quote:

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Very impressive indeed!

I concur that Samplemodeling’s instruments are the most realistic sounding instruments. Someday I will have enough money set aside to purchase them.

How do you like the Swain engine? Is it better than Kontakt? I am a little leery of buying the Sax brothers if sometime in the near future they will be converted to the Swain engine.

I am a hacker on the EWI-USB. Like Stan I use the brass fingerings. However you sound like you have played the clarinet and possible the sax for years. You really sound great on these songs.

Thanx for inspiring me.

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Re: Kontakt vs SWAM engine
Not in my opinion but it's probably a bit more complicated. The SWAM, as you may know, was only introduced with the Soprano Sax. Up to that time, in my experience, all of the instruments (Trumpet, Trombone, French Horn, Tuba) with the exception of the Saxophones (Alto, Tenor, Bari) played really beautifully right out of the box -hardly any tweaking needed at all, except for adjustments for the vibrato. That you need to changes to the parameters if you want more user control of the vibrato. All of this was done in Kontakt and after awhile you got pretty familiar with the Kontakt interface (including idiosyncrasies). The registration used to be a real pain, but that was fixed a bit later and it is not too bad.

However, in my experience, getting the Alto, Tenor and Bari Saxophones to play well took me a lot of time and tweaking. Since I found it so frustrating, relative to the Trumpet etc., I did not sit down for 8 solid hrs of tweaking until I had a good sound, so it took me a month or more before I had put in enough time of reading and re-reading the manual, asking questions, and twiddling. Again, other people did not appear to take as much time because they were pretty satisfied with the sound they got, whereas I wanted a mellower, breathy tenor sound. This reflects the crazy variation in acceptable Sax tones vs the acceptable Trumpet, Trombone tones. I don't much care for the Duck Call School of Saxophone, but that's just a matter of preference in Pop, Rock, and Jazz. Classical Sax sound is an entirely different animal and unfortunately, I don't know of any samples of that type.

My first experience with SWAM (Soprano Sax) was terrible. I couldn't get a half decent sound at all. This was partly because, the interface is totally different, and in my opinion, pretty strange at first and also because I did not have a good VST host program. Instead of radio buttons to turn things on and off, you have to move them horizontally (L to R). It's a real disservice to the user to force them to give up tried and true interface conventions without a really good reason (there is none in this case). Another weird decision was rather than putting the choice of Keyboard vs Wind Controller right in the Main Window Menu System, SWAM requires you to load the Keyboard or Wind Controller file. Again this works against the new user in my opinion -certainly it is a problem for anyone used to the Kontakt interface.

If you already have a VST Host program that you are familiar with, then you run SWAM in that program. If you don't they recommended a free program that was absolutely horrible. The only way it would run SWAM was with a command line interface where you had to type in a bunch of parameters with the SWAM program name.

If I were to grade Kontakt vs SWAM, for ease of learning (also perhaps for ease of use, but not as much) I would give Kontakt an B+, and SWAM a D.

Keep in mind that as far as SWAM vs Kontakt Engine performance goes, I don't have anything useful to say. The reason SWAM was created was because the developers felt that Kontakt was not good for what they needed to do. My guess is that Kontakt works well enough for Brass samples than for reed wind instruments.

My second experience with SWAM after installing the Clarinet was much better, because, I tried a second free program that they mentioned (Cantabile Lite) which has an excellent interface (including a web video tutorial), and I realized, after about 15 minutes, that there was a way to tell SWAM that I was using a Wind Controller. Partly my fault, that I did not read the User Manual right away, because somewhere toward the middle they tell you to choose between the Keyboard (default) and the Wind Controller setting.

As far as your worry about all the Saxes switching to the SWAM, why don't you ask them? It's possible that they may do that, but they may not charge anything for the new version. They have not charged for any updates to improved versions of the existing samples so far.

I hope that answers some of your questions.