Man, that don't sound like no Kymco scooter ridin' nerd!(LOL).

That delicious, painfully slow tempo, that just sucks you right into the groove. Man, I miss that!

My preference would have been to just eliminate the guitar track and let the piano stand as the only comping instrument....OR,
try to find some old, washed up guitar playing ex hippy to play guitar on in when he FINALLY finds his way back to Atlanta (HINT, HINT).

Russ (peace out, man) Lay

Nice stuff, as always, chas... LOVE that Nord!

If it helps, personally, I refuse to play a lead sax sound unless I can have my LH glued to the pitch lever. Not bending and scooping, even slightly, most of the notes in a sax line is the ONE thing that gives it away as a keyboard imitation. Sadly, the PA1 doesn't have a pitch strip (like the Triton's do) which offers even MORE in the way of live control over pitch (trills, note jumping, finger vibrato, etc.), but even so, listen to any sax player... there's hardly EVER a note that is hit perfectly in tune, and doesn't GO somewhere after initially hit.

It's like singing... Ever look at the graphical readout on Auto-Tune or any other pitch correction software? The human voice is anything BUT steady in pitch, everything is a slide from one place to another, you will NEVER see a string of notes hit in tune, that STAY in tune, and jump cleanly to the next note. Same with saxes...

There's nothing intrinsically WRONG with the Korg PA sax sound. Add the inflection that a real player would add, It's basically as good as any other, including SA sounds. After all, SA really is basically automatically adding the inflection and note join ups that a good player will put in manually. We have all heard user SA sax demos that suck as much as any other sax sound on other arrangers, there's no magic bullet.

Sure, you can over-use, or incorrectly use the bender, but even worse, IMO, is not using it at ALL...

Hope this helps. Keep 'em coming, my friend!

Diki I know this is probably impossible....but can you provide an example of what your talking about ....I myself dont use the bend much......too busy doing other stuff when im playing.
But maybe if I can hear some examples of the Sax stylings like your describing I can get an idea of where to start learning the technic someday.



[This message has been edited by Dnj (edited 09-15-2010).]

Diki, you've mentioned this before and you're absolutely correct. It's just that I haven't taken the time to try to improve this playing technique for imitating a sax player. I think maybe subconsiously, I feel it's more about the feeling you're trying to convey (ie. DonM's "Makes me want a drink of hard liquor") than the super-accurate sax emulation. Of course, the better the technique, the easier it is to convey your message. I'll work on it.

Donny, I think an example of what Diki is talking about is the sax demo on the Tyros 2. My problem is, I can't seem to duplicate that kind of realism. Sounds like a breath controller might have been used. I've always threatened to get one of those wind controllers (I know sax fingering......but can't play one) but just never have. I'd love to hear one midi'ed up to that Yamaha tenor sax (SA).

Thanks to everyone for the kind words, that PA1x pro is a helluva drum machine. Makes it easy to quickly throw something together.

chas

Nice job Chas. I listened before reading your script and could have sworn it was a real B3 - that Nord is unreal.

Chas, the sax sound was really good, but the notes bled together in various places, and a saxophone is a monophonic instrument.

Perhaps if you switched the sound to monophonic, it would at least prevent one note sounding against another, if you know what I mean.

All the pitch bends and scooping don't mean a thing if you have two notes bleeding together, and most keyboard players overdo the bending...not all sax players play like that, and it doesn't actually make it sound realistic unless you hear the change in timbre as well as the difference in throatiness.

Yamaha's T3 SA2 Sax comes the closest so far, in my opinion, although the sax you used has a nice, almost atmospheric, sound that is very appealing

Let's be realistic; I haven't heard anyone realistically duplicate a sax on a Yamaha Roland or a Korg...the best we can strive for is the illusion of a saxophone, or an impression of a saxophonist, but it is still very easy for a real sax player to pick out the unrealistic parts.

Love the Nord sound a lot...very earthy and warm, not at all digital sounding.

Again, nice stuff, buddy.

Ian

Russ wasn't sure sure if you were talking about yourself or me lol

AHHH CHAS,
this is just fine. It took three days of trying before I got to hear it all the way through and it was well worth the effort.
thanks for sharing this fine talent.
Best regards,
Bebop

...all that education and still doesn't have a "real" job!

Taike

------------------
Bo pen nyang.

It really doesn't take much to get into the pitch bend thing... to be honest, I find simply LISTENING to whatever you want to emulate for enough time, and you will quickly develop an ear for when you are getting it right.

Quite a while back I posted a live version of 'How Sweet It Is (to be loved by you)' at Roland-arranger.com that has a played sax solo http://www.roland-arranger.com/smf/index.php?topic=845.0 (sax solo is at about 2:00 in). It's not my BEST work (just a live take) but maybe you get the gist from it...

The trick really is to not exaggerate.... Tiny little scoops and bends go a LOT further than big dramatic ones, and learning WHERE they are best placed is most of the difficulty. Again, simply listening to sax players is the answer.

BTW, I do NOT encourage you to switch to monophonic mode. Unfortunately, other than SA sounds (and even they are tricky to get phrased right), monophonic mode quickly makes you sound more like a synth or kazoo than a sax, as you end up with only the short, looped section of the waveform playing for entire notes. Careful attention to legato technique is what makes the difference..

I have a tendency to edit any horn sounds that don't stop quite quickly on note-up (you'd be surprised at how long some of the releases are) so that my playing alone determines the note-off point. Then just practice playing a line all the way from detach� to smooth, smooth legato, and all points in between. Just be SURE to never let the end of the note overlap the beginning of the next one...

For you, chas, pretend you are playing with the short Hammond percussion ONLY (no drawbars out). You KNOW how critical that staccato/legato thing is there, as it completely determines whether the note you play sounds at all! Overlap two notes, and the second doesn't sound at all... It's about that critical on a sax sound (or any wind instrument).

Another thing to try for horn sounds is, if you are going to use aftertouch for vibrato, and your arranger can do it, program LFO SPEED as well as depth to increase with pressure, then program the LFO to be a little bit too slow at the lowest pressure setting, and just about right, or even a hair fast at highest pressure. Subtlety is the key, you only want it so you only JUST notice it, but a regular unchanging vibrato rate is once again a dead giveaway that it's a keyboard. Some can do the same trick with the modulation lever, too (I'm pretty sure all the Korg's can).

The main point is to f*ck things up a bit... sax players are ANYTHING but machine perfect , and anything you can do to throw in a bit of change into the sound goes a LONG way...

Hope this encourages some of us to give the LH chord recognition a rest (make an SMF of the accompaniment, if you like), and use your LH for something expressive...