The thing is that most of you forget is that different people learn at different rates. I'm sorry but I've printed out the manual. I've also printer out whole sections of psr tutorial. I've read sections if instructions over and over and still don't know how to do stuff I have studied in depth. The arranger is not a easy to play and meke it sound good. You need to arrange each tune separately. This taked a lot more work than just playing a piano or organ.

never a truer word well said

Ekurburski, I agree with your view.

Another view: Piano and Organ take a longer to master. I have taken lesson on both. They are all about you, except for some pedals.

IMO, John C.

Diki, one of the reasons we have always gotten along is that we have always been able to amicably agree to disagree . Marco Parisi may be my favorite SYNTH player and their are times I have been absolutely mesmerized by his artistry and mastery of the instrument. HOWEVER.....in this case, I hold to my argument. The tone is 'okay' (not great) but the playing technique doesn't sound like a sax player to me. Besides, this is not a traditional keyboard instrument and even a great keyboardist would need to learn to play it properly to get all the expressiveness it's capable of (you may notice that it never really took off commercially).

The most authentic is probably those digital sax's but then you'd have to know or learn sax fingering, and at that point you might as well just go ahead and play the sax . Next best; probably a Yammy with a breath controller. JMO.

chas

Well, as one of the first people in the States to get a DX7 and a breath controller (lucked into one while everybody else was on waiting lists and paying over retail!) I can’t disagree that it certainly HELPS to have a BC, and back before modeling and articulated sample sets, I’d have agreed 100%. But I don’t think it’s as necessary as it used to be. I’ve been working with the SWAM saxes on iPad, and by using the expression pedal, you can get about 80% of what the BC used to give you.

Yes, if you put a picky enough ear on it, just like the very best clone wheels, you can hear a difference. But to 99.9% of people, play an idiomatic enough line, you can get away with it..!

BTW, Roli got bought out and the new company is back making them. They also added a tactile line in the middle of the key to help your finger settle. I look forward to trying one soon…

This is just a snippet I did for TonyMads (remember him) when we were discussing this very topic (sax emulation). It started life as a little demo of the 'Freddy Green' (Count Basie Band) style of guitar comping. It became a signature sound of the band and anchored that rock solid rhythm section. The sax is the 'Breathy Sax' from my ancient PA1xPro which I still have. As you can see, I tend to like that 'smoky lounge' type of sax playing on slow tunes. In case you're NOT an ol' codger, the tune is Sweet Loraine (as I remember it done by Nat 'King' Cole). The changes may or may not be correct .

https://app.box.com/s/mvx7i1pp3rj48m9czdwuxayu9i5jpvm9

chas

Chas
I think that is a great emulation of a slow lounge sax' I have a breathy sax on my Pa4x that doesn't sound that good. It could be my playing,duh.

Bernie, this was a few years ago so to make sure I didn't mislead you about the sax voice, I went down and checked my PA1x. Turns out I don't even have a voice called 'breathy sax'. The voice I used was a user voice called 'chas sax' which was actually just the standard factory voice called 'tenor sax', to which I had just added some reverb and renamed. Diki is right, a little tweaking can make all the difference.

chas

Yamaha's Sweet Tenor Sax is incredibly realistic and Boo Hargis said that it sounds so realistic that he would have a great deal of difficulty listening and determining if it was real or not.

There are lots of other instruments on the newer model Yamaha arranger keyboards that are equally as realistic sounding, and in the hands of a good player, they can really make a huge difference in the production of a song.

I personally believe that fingering technique and in depth knowledge of the instrument you are trying to emulate is the key to success. Don Mason was a sheer genius with his guitar emulation, and my son, whom is an accomplished guitarist said it would be impossible to know those sounds were coming from an arranger keyboard.

Jimmy McKinney (JimSax) who was inducted in the Musicians Hall Of Fame in Maryland for his sax playing said he wishes he could get his tenor sax to sound as good as the one on his Tyros2 arranger keyboard.

Attached are a few examples: 4 different sax demos from my PSR-S950. Sax Demos

Gary