Thanks Chas. I’ve missed our sparring too!

The thing about SWAM is, there’s a reason you like what you have. You bought it! It was better than what you had before, so you got to using it. All I’m saying is, if you have a device SWAM runs on, buy it, it’s pocket change. And it may easily make you think of your current favorite the way you think of the sound that that replaced!

You want sexy breathy sax, it does that. Same one also does loud growly sax. And everything in between, all by simply how you play. Believe me, I’ve got my goto sax sounds I’ve used for decades. Breathy Alto. Been in Roland’s my last three arrangers. Never thought I would need better. Then I played SWAM. Game over!

In truth, it’s not the sound. It how it handles legato, something sampled saxes fail at spectacularly. They are amazing one note at a time, but fail horribly trying to join a phrase together. Enter SWAM. It can ONLY play one note ar a time, like a real sax. You might (you did!) accidentally overlap a couple of notes, and you got two notes, not one. You might also join up two notes for a legato, but the sample was tongued for both. Sax players only tongue the start of phrases.

I think the best way to explain it to an organ player is, you know the difference between how a proper B3 percussion tab works compared to a sampled percussion organ patch? Night and day. Phrasing is so much easier when the start of phrases is where you hear the percussion. Even Hammond temporarily lost their way making later models than the B3 have multiple trigger percussion (triggers on every note), and it why the B3 is still King, and the most emulated organ out there (not a lot of L100 models, are there?!).

If you’ve got a device it will run on, give SWAM a whirl. At worst, you’re only out $40. At best, you’ve found your new favorite sax! I think maybe I need to run up a couple of demos doing stuff I know you’d like… 🎹♥️