Hi folks, I get asked quite a bit in private email from forum members on tips and tricks to edit or (tweek) voices. So I thought I'd share a tip with you guys every so often as the PSR's do have basic synth editing.

Today's Tips: "That Amazing Yamaha Sweet Soprano Sax..., how did they do that"?

I want to share a few tips with members on how to get an "AMAZING" more realistic solo using a soprano sax (this also applies to other saxes). First let me explain why that Yamaha Sweet Soprano makes people wet their pants. The important terms that apply are "crescendo, and decrescendo". What makes a soprono sax so beautiful is the crescendos within the solo, and how the player will modulate. Those changes in volume are controlled by the player, and when added at the right moments you'll find yourself making love to your speakers

The Sweet Soprano voice sounds so authentic because Yammie has a crescendo within the voice itself. Because of this the sound is more realistic. However, the volume change within that sound is "fixed". It is not controllable by the user. When you play this sound the crescendo will always be at the same time.

If you want to play a more realistic solo you'll need to control the crescendos manually. Yammie users I suggest not selecting the Sweet Soprono Sax for this-considering the manual volume change will not work well with that voice , so chose the normal preset soprano sax.

First you'll most likely want to make a few parameter edits to the sax sound itself. My suggestions are this:

-First make a slight adjustment to the "Attack" (in the positive direction). This way the sound will have a smoother start. Play with the Attack level until it sounds good to you--be mindful not to go too high Otherwise when you press a note you'll have time to get a cup of coffee before it reaches max level I would suggest nothing above +5.

After you play with the "Attack" you're gonna need to make a very minute change with the "Cutoff". Again "minute" is the key word there. This will round the sound out and better balance the changes made to the attack. Again adjust the cuttoff in the positve direction. Doing this will bring the "reed" sound back into it and can even make it sound stronger the further you go in the positive direction. Going in the negative direction will "darken" the sound. So unless you're going for a dark "someone just passed away solo", don't go in the negative direction

Next make effects settings that work for you. Sopranos, we often hear are drowned in reverb So don't go overboard with that effect. You may find an EQ adjustment to work well too.

Now you'll need to work the volume within this sound while playing. Yammie users if you got a "volume pedal" hook it up! Roland users if your board has a D-beam ya already got the tools. just set "Active Espression" to Volume or "Assignable" to Volume. Also for the Roland users--if you use the D-Beam I would suggest a lower "sensitivity level". If you have it set too high you'll get breaks within the sound.

Now PRACTICE and ENJOY.... Your sax solos will be much more authentic using this method, and you'll be able to play with a much higher level of expression. This will also apply to other voices like violins too. PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE. The result will be very rewarding.

Best Regards,
Squeak

Thanks for the great tips, Squeak...it's those little details that really make the difference.

One of the most important things to be aware of when "playing" sax, is that the player has to breathe, so try and breathe along with your playing and finish the note when you physically run out.

Another thing that works for me is that a sax is a monophonic instrument, so I always make sure the sound is in mono.

Good post.

Ian

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Yes Ian you're right, often players forget that the sax player has to take a breath every so often

All my sax edits are set to "monophonic"

I wonder if you guys can answer a question which has puzzled me for some time.

Yamaha make a great point of the fact that some of their SA voices sound monophonically (usually by playing legato) or polyphonically depending on how you play them. I have never seen the practical use of this unless it is only to provide the ability to easily trill 2 notes.
I argue that if I want to play solo (mono) I play 1 note at a time in the RH. If I want to play poly - I play chords. Simple!
For similar reasons I don't really see what the practical use of the panel mono button is either, again unless it's to provide the trill capability.

So what are your reasons for applying mono to solo voices (when you can just as well play using one finger -lol!)

It would be different if the mono voice would act as a reliable lead (melody) voice when playing RH chords as it did on say the PSR 7000 which I still have.
But with Tyros 2, if you play say 3 note RH chords set to mono it's a mess because ANY of the 1,2,3 notes could come up as the one sounded, not just the highest or "lead".

I hope I haven't made it too confusing!

John

Nope, John, not too complicated.

I sometimes add a little portamento to my mono sax sound(about 20-30 on my PSR-3000)and I can get slides to notes by playing legato, or holding the first note played while pressing another higher or lower note.

I find limiting myself to the one note at a time makes me phrase more like a sax player....it may be just psychological...I don't know.

In the case of the PSR-7000(I had an 8000) the lead voice could be made mono and have a high or low note priority (user selectable)so that a note at the top of a chord would do what you expected of it.

I'm not sure if the Tyros1/2 offer this feature...perhaps someone else could answer that for us...I'm sure you could make the SA Sax mono all the time, but I'm not sure of the note priority selectability.

I thought the Tyros2 SA sax was a killer and took a bit of practise to get the most from it.

Hope this helps a bit.

Ian

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Remember to leave good news alone.

Ian's right about the portamento. I use portamento on saxes as well.... I didn't go into that on this topic because portamento settings sometimes confuse the hell out of people, because you have to learn how to set the "time" of the portamento to get the right effect. Using the portamento along with the voice set to monophonic will give you very smooth transitions from note to note.

Squeak

Thanks for the good responses.
Portamento is a reason for setting to mono, although I tend not to get on with it too well (on other than on the whistle!). For slides and legato type playing on saxes/trumpets/human voices, I use custom voices which can bend in pitch or lose the attack depending on how hard or soft the notes are hit.
IMO you can get much more responsiveness than provided with many of the SA voices.

John