Keyboard you guys need to get KaZaa and search for Dexter Gordon, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Johnny Griffin to hear what my definition of what a great sax sound is.

For my taste in true Jazz these are the greatest jazz tenor sax players to ever have lived barring none. Sonny Rollins is still alive. I like Getz and many others, but these 4 to me are the ultimate tenor sax players. Each one sounds different and unique but are the best.

Alto sax and Soprano are different animals. They both get old to me quickly other than the old ballads David Sanborn did. He did a great job on them. I don't like Alto or Soprano as much as tenor. KennyG plays beautiful soprano sax, but he's not a jazz saxophonist. He's said so himself.

I can listen to tenor all night. All of the players of any type sax today listen to these guys. Maybe not the jazz-fusion guys. In 1957, when we played what they call “jazz-fusion” today, we called it funk.

It's only jazz to modernists. It's not the same as traditional jazz. You don't have to like traditional jazz, just listen to some of the tunes these four guys did, and if you're a real musician you'll ask yourself, "how in the hell did they do that?"

Just think a minute, these guys recorded much of their stuff “live” with “junk equipment” by today's standards. They play in “tempos as faster than you can tap your foot” and you'll have to listen many many times to hear maybe one or two mistakes, if any.

It sounds impossible, unreal (sorry, again my vocabulary fails me). No you won't make a lot of money playing like that, but if you're bored with what you do today, listen to these guys and it will present a lifetime of challenges for any musician. Even David Sanborn, KennyG and all the modern guys. Any saxophonists you can name playing right now has nothing on these guys. There maybe one or two or three that are close but I don’t think anybody as good.

The part I don't like is that it takes 8 hours a day and 4 hours of live playing at night plus more pot or Budweiser than I can afford to get this good. If you try to do it sober you'll lose your mind.

What can I say! I bet if you count their practice time these guys didn't make a nickle an hour. You guys know anybody that practices 8 hours every day, even for 2 days. Charlie Parker did it for years.

Dave got me all squared away with the laptop this pasted week. I'm setting up a few things for gigging and the laptop will definitely make a difference.

When you put a folder from your Desktop computer on to a CD with EZ Creator and then put the CD into your laptop and drag the folder onto the start screen (Desktop screen on the laptop) the songs are copied as "Read Only" files it seems.

I couldn't re-save with the save icon in BIAB. When I would edit a volume or anything in BIAB, it would give the message that it was a read only file. You guys probably know all of this already.

OK OK I'll shut up now,
Boo

Mike,

My band is often booked as a backup band for performers that come through Ohio and surrounding areas. Just 3 weeks ago, we were the band for the DooWop show that is touring the country while the show was in Cincinnati. You may have seen some of these performers on TV since a past concert was taped for broadcast to promote the show and sell DVD’s. Anyway, this particular show featured among others, Maurice Williams, The Edsels, The Eldorados, Little Peggy March, The Spaniels, the Skyliners and Daddy G and the Fifth Street Band.

Daddy G is a tenor (sax) player. His plane was late getting in so he didn’t make it to rehearsal before the show. He was to perform his own material but also supply the sax, (what is DooWop without a tenor honking away between verses?) for the other artists’ performances. Being the trouper that I am, I pulled up the Growl Sax on my Genesys Pro and proceeded to do a sax solo in Rama Lama Ding Dong and everyone on stage turned and looked at me as if to say “How’d you do that?”

Once Daddy G arrived and was warming up, I selected the Tenor 1 sound and started copying his licks. He came over and said he had never heard a keyboard that could actually sound like a real sax. Even when I was playing this sound along with Daddy G, I was surprised at how authentic the sound was.

To duplicate an acoustic instrument using the current technology of sample-based instruments effectively requires several things. A good sample set and the appropriate assortment of synth parameters to mold those samples into something useful. Something that the instrument can’t supply is the ability to play a sound with the proper articulation based on what the real acoustic instrument is capable of producing as well as playing in the range of the particular instrument, etc.

To me, most keyboard sax sounds are either far too sterile (clean) or have been surrounded by an artificial ‘breath’ sound or an LFO produced growl or buried in reverb beyond recognition. The sax sounds in the Genesys thankfully do not fall into any of those categories. Again, it is extremely important how the sound is played. Playing outside the register of the real instrument, or playing note runs that are not common to the real instrument, will only emphasize the fact that it is an imitation.

Just my two cents worth. I started out with a good fifty cents worth of comments, but I cut it down to the above. Although I do have to point out that an instrument's MIDI Implementation has nothing to do with how the instrument sounds. If you want to talk MIDI implementation though, please feel free, because there is not another arranger instrument out there that is as capable as the Genesys when it comes to MIDI, sequencing, great sounds and a real synth editor, etc.
(Sorry, I just added another cent's worth of comment there)

Dave

Maybe the Europeans have the sax sound down pat. The AltoSax on my Ketron XD3 was absolutely stunning. On solos it could fool people.

One of the things REALLY holding me back on the Tyros is that I think it's sax sounds are terrible. It was interesting to see Scott corroborate this for me. I even listened to the Motif ES samples WITH the Virtual Acoustic plug-in board and I STILL thought the sax sounds were terrible.

Even Andrea's brilliant playing couldn't convince me that the sax sounds on the Tyros are passable. They simply sounded like the sax sounds from my Ensoniq Mirage keyboard/sampler from 1988!

It's a terrible Catch 22 - worse styles and better saxes on the GEM/Ketron but better styles, more reliability and TONS of support on the Yamaha's.

Ugh. I keep spinning my wheels.

Tommy

Here's Dexter Gordon and Paul Hardcastle teaming up to do "Birdland in Paradise":

Dexter Gordon on Sax

Best regards,
Mike

The Yamaha saxes, even the Tyros, have fallen behind, in my opinion. The Ketron X1 had a very believable sax, if you played it as a sax player would. I find myself simply not using the sax as much, which to me is no problem. The Growl Sax on the Tyros is pretty good in the right context.
Love those Tyros guitars though.
I am still looking forward to hearing the Genesys in person.
DonM

DITTO!

Only it will have to be the Genesys PRO for me. I couldn't tolerate lugging the Genesys (with onboard speakers "at over 60 lbs.") around after the first or second 'attempt' to do so.

Best regards,
Mike

Don & Mike,

Will the both of you be at the San Jose get together?

Hi Paul, is this (hopefully) a 'hint' that you're going to be able to make it to our San Jose, CA Synthzone Get Together?

I sure HOPE so, as I for one, as well as I'm sure all the other attendees are anxious to finally see, hear, and play the GEM Genesys first hand. Please CONFIRM whether you'll be able to attend, as well as when (day/time) you'd like to schedule your presentation. All other arranger keyboard manufacter/dealers are (of course) encouraged to attend our May 22/23rd San Jose Synthzone Get Together as well. - Scott

Please keep the checks ($10) coming into Bill (Bebop) Forrest:

Bill Forrest
195 Blossom Hill Road
Lot #279
San Jose, California 95123

The problem with built-in styles in arranger keyboards is you can never fully please everyone with what ends up in the finished version of the instrument. Some people want more Arabic styles, some want more polkas and I recently saw a post asking about more hip hop. The fact that there are 64 User Style locations on the Genesys and the ability to store hundreds of styles on the included internal hard drive or burn them to a CD right on the instrument makes for a very versatile instrument. If you are comfortable with sequencing it is not very hard to create your own custom styles or even edit the existing styles. There are websites that offer additional styles for the Genesys, some for free and some for a small fee. The RASS styles are particularly interesting because they feature sampled loops of real live instrumentation played by real musicians but still retain the ability to respond to tempo and key changes.

As for sounds, I feel there are many more sounds than just the sax that are more musically useful in the Genesys than what is available on some of the other instruments out there. As already mentioned in this thread, a believable reproduction of an acoustic instrument from an electronic keyboard is largely dependant on how the sound is played. But it sure helps if the sounds/samples are of higher quality and good programming as that makes the job quite a bit easier. Behind the scenes of the Genesys sound engine is a real full-fledged programmable synthesizer which allows for an incredible amount of sound modeling that is just not present on most of the other instruments. If you don’t care for a particular sound, it can be modified to your liking.

The Genesys is the most customizable arranger keyboard available and it doesn’t require the user to be an expert at brain surgery to figure out. Like any instrument, there is a learning curve, but the panel layout is very logical, and if you do get stuck General Music’s product support is very good (I happen to know the guy who provides support. Nice guy!). The Genesys has enjoyed a very high reliability since it was first introduced.

A final thought- All of the instruments/brands available today are pretty good. Each has their own pluses and minuses. I really do feel that the Genesys has more pluses than most. Am I biased? No, not really. I have owned all of the popular and not so popular brands of keyboard instruments over the years and have come to the conclusion that the General Music instruments offer more bang for the buck so to speak. I am not sure if it is unfortunate or not that the company is still relatively small in comparison to the Japanese companies and therefore doesn’t have huge resources when it comes to advertising, promotions, etc. I do think that they deserve a much larger share of the market than what they currently have. Thankfully, things are moving forward within the company very nicely and it may not be long before the name General Music becomes more of a household word. Although I am pretty sure that the company will stick to making musical instruments and not delve into golf carts, motorcycles, pocket knives, etc.

Dave

Dave -

I hear what you are saying, but as somebody that just came off a frustrating year of owning a Ketron XD3 I would stress that it is EXTREMELY important to have a lot of support.

I never got the unit to recognize my accordion's bellow sensitivity, which was a HUGE problem. Every note played on the right hand of my accordion had the exact same velocity. I simply couldn't use expression! I sent out several emails and never got a satisfactory response.

The polyphony was terrible and made using some styles with harmony unusable. I couldn't remember which styles worked with which version of harmony (jazz, full, etc.) without dropping out so I just quit using this valuable feature.

I bought a Yamaha AW16G and used the AW16G support group to get every single question answered on the spot. It was GREAT! Motifator is amazing, and there are PSRTutorial and SVPWorld among many other Yamaha support sites.

Nothing I can find for GEM and Ketron support. I mean sure, there are some VERY dormant (1 post a month) sites out there but that is no help to me. I even joined the Yahoo Solton/Ketron support group and it was very disappointing.

Why would I want to buy a keyboard that I have to search long and hard to just find a simple demo of it, and to see one in person is almost impossible? I can check out a Tyros and Motif ES at several stores within 5 miles of my house.

I don't care what else a company makes. Truth be told, the Yamaha R1 and R6 are unbelievable sport motorcycles. As a motorcycle enthusiast, these bikes are fast, reliable, and comfortable. My AW16G DAW from Yamaha is great. So what do I care if they want to make pianos, motorcycles, arrangers, etc? They are just a really big company with several divisions that do very different things. I am sure that their Keyboard division dwarfs both GEM and Ketron combined, so the fact they do many things just means there is more company behind them.

I've tried the Ketron route and was unhappy. GEM sounds like the same thing all over again. Love my AW16G and the support I get from it. I'll go the Tyros route and see if I'm pleased.

Just wish those saxes were a lot better. (I knew somehow I'd come back to the original topic!)

Tommy