Emulating another instrument in MIDI is not all about tone. In fact as long as the tone is 'in the ballpark' it's not that important.

What IS important is copping the nuances of the instrument you are trying to emulate.

When a comedian does an impersonation of a famous person, does he/she have the same voice? Of course not.

Then how do we hear the famous person instead of the comedian? He/she studies the famous person's nuances, uses the ones he/she can copy, and ignores the ones he/she can't.

Same with a MIDI instrument. What are the nuances a player uses on his/her particular instrument. They are restricted by what the instrument can or can't do (for example a piano can't bend notes).

So for a sax, there are dozens of ways to articulate the note with variations of tongue placement, breath support, and airstream pressure -- there are ways to change the vowel sound of the tone by changing the oral cavity of the player - pitch variations of the reed are important, often scooping up to notes, or pitch vibrato that also changes the tone - grace notes mordents and other ornaments play a big part - throat growl and/or flutter tongue methods add various amounts of distortion - general tone gets brighter with more volume - and so on.

People new to MIDI often chase tone and forget about the way an instrument expresses itself. If you play that sax or guitar patch like a piano, it isn't going to fool anyone, no matter how good the tone is. If you play that piano patch like a sax or guitar, it won't fool anyone either.

Of course there may be times you want an instrument patch to not emulate what the patch is. Vibrato on piano? Why not if you are trying something new.

Insights and incites by Notes

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

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