Oh, and Glenn01, No. It doesn't appear to be intermittent. I've heard it consistently. Sometimes it depends on the key too which is Strange.

For example, I have the midi file "At Last" by Celine Dion, and it has a prominent violin solo throughout the song. Well it sounds fine in the original key, but for some reason when I raise it up 3 semi-tones for MY key, the violin's vibrato sounds a lot more like a wobble instead of a vibrato and it sounds off.

If it wasn't automatic, I could actually modify the track and add EXACTLY how much vibrato and in what spots I want it with my Korg keyboard.

So you see that in this case, I'm stuck with what sounds like a violin that's "off" until I figure out how to fix this.

I personally think that sounds have samples with vibrato are problematic.

Vibrato is mostly done in sync with tempo. So, those samples will sound good, if you are playing close to tempo when they were sampled in. but if you shift keys, you are actually making the sample faster, so the vibrato does NOT sound natural.

Unless you sample each key for each tempo, you can't get a universal good sounding vibrato samples.

I agree with justforfun... the modulation wheel should be used to get the vibrato effect.

OK, I get your point now !

As UD wrote : The sampled sounds are SAMPLED with all typical effects included.

A sax-sound changes in more than one way when time 'passes' :

Attack, envelope, volume, harmonics, brightness, volume-modulation (tremolo), windsound/noise and frequency-modulation (vibrato)

So it is absolutely 'natural' those things happen IMHO.

for example :
A vibraphone has build-in vibrato. Who wants to add vibrato with the use of the modulation wheel ?

UD is right : Just pick another sound that has no vibrato.

Roel

btw I live in Europe

Just for fun,
as far as I know, the SD1 is the only arranger that plays back midifiles using the internal sounds instead of a dedicated GM sound bank; this explains why, if I play the same midifile first on my SD1 and then on my VA7, the difference in sound quality is really stunning, especially for what refers to the drum track.
Maybe, if the SD1 had a dedicated GM sound bank, this vibrato problem would disappear, but frankly I am more than willing to put up with problems like these, given the sound quality I get in return.
Like Roel suggested, you could simply try a different sound until you come up with something you like. If you still feel really disappointed, try to play the midifile on another keyboard and you will love your SD1 again.

Samples with and without vibrato are both useful. Using a synth's LFO (controlled via the mod wheel) does not yield a realistic vibrato. The best way to get a realistic vibrato is to have it in the sample--in which case it is difficult to control. I do think the SD1 would be better off with a set of samples without vibrato that are used for general midi playback. But, overall, I think samples with and without vibrato should be included in a synth.

Yes, I agree with that last comment. Thankfully the sax DOES have a "Dry sax" that works.

But as far as I know there is no dry fiddle. :-(

The real promblem is that GENERAL midi is just THAT - GENERAL. It will never be all things to all people. It's a starting block, a template if you will. If something specific is bugging you .... you need to make it specific to YOUR needs. Thereis no way a programmer can anticipate the end result of each of the songs they create, because they will all be played on different media, in different ways.
Just use what works, and FIX what doesn't.
It's no ones responsibility to make EVERYthing work for EVERYone. That's YOUR job ... to personalize and perfect your art. Expression is a key element to excitement, and adding the sampled vibrato adds a realism to notes played in real time, that would be more difficult to do if you needed to access anothetr controller to get the effect. It's all ying and yang ......
you gotta give a little,
take a little .....
That's the story of,
that's the glory of ...
(well, you get the idea )