Best VST Sax

[wagtunes]

After listening to the Billy Joel track again, it almost sounds like he's blowing into that thing as hard as humanly possible. The Mr T just doesn't have that tone. It's not even close.

First of all I don't Think there is any vst that could reproduce every possible sound that a real saxophone can. In order to get that gritty sound you are right, you have to use a lot of air, but most of all you have a lot of lip action going on to Control the reed.

As I am not a sax player, I'll take your word for it. But you're probably right. I don't think technology is there yet nor do I think it's going to be there in my lifetime.

Having said that, The Mr T is the closest I've heard. And if I thought I'd have use for 3 saxophones and the money to spend I'd get them. But, with the wind controller, that's $600 which is insane to spend to play "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant" cover.

[jancivil]

I have the SampleModeling from back in the day for Kontakt. It can do growl, it's set up for that specifically.
VSL has a growl articulation that's very, very good, but that's really strictly from keyswitched articulations while you are responsible for a lot of the sound with SampleModeling. My go-to is more WarpIV but I've put its tenor next to SampleModeling's Mr T, a slightly different sound. If you're ready to do a lot more work, SampleModeling, but there are some awfully nice soft breathy things out of WarpIV that I don't want to even try to make happen in the other m.o.

Again, you control the amount of growl with CC. For me, the whole breath controller bit was not worth the trouble, it's a CC lane in the piano roll, it's not magic. If your key controller has good aftertouch... Def. RTFM-type instrument.

SampleModeling responds a lot better to pitch bend, one supposes because of the modeling bit.

[Dasheesh]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqBzhwNW9EQ

[wagtunes]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqBzhwNW9EQ

Already listened. Don't like the sound at all.

[Dasheesh]

Oh, missed the post where it was listed sorry.

[bigcat1969]

Best growl I can get...
https://soundcloud.com/bigcat1969/growl-sax

https://soundcloud.com/bigcat1969/growl

https://soundcloud.com/bigcat1969/shoot-growl-sax

Added reverb and pitchbend, I'm sure its still crap but I'm having fun!

[wagtunes]

Best growl I can get...
https://soundcloud.com/bigcat1969/growl-sax

It's fair. Now listen to Billy Joel. I know I'm being picky but I'm not settling here. If I can't get what I want I'll simply do without it.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

I say this to be constructive, but I think you either need to accept something less than perfect, or spend more money than you're willing to, or hire a live tenor sax player, or use a different instrument entirely. I find it strange that you did a country music project using synthesized vocals, and thought that was acceptable, but you need an absolutely lifelike sampled tenor sax and nothing less will suffice. Why is the lack of authenticity acceptable in one case, but not in this one? For this song or project, I'd either hire someone, or replace the sax with a B3 or an electric guitar solo and move on. How often will you really use a tenor sax plugin, and how difficult will it be to realistic results out of it? For that kind of cost and hassle, you're best off looking for a different solution entirely IMO. As you've already figured out I'm sure, modeling brass is much more difficult than modeling a bass or a keyboard instrument.

[robosax]

yay! I've been lurking for years and finally a topic I can contribute to.

I've been doing sax emulations for 30 years and know just a wee bit about this very topic.

Hi wagtunes!

I have almost every sax plugin under the sun and have tried quite a few over the years. You're not going to find that exact sax tone. So, you might want to lower you expectations a little. There are some plugins that can get you close though.

As with other acoustic instrument emulations, you get what you pay for. IMO, Samplemodeling SWAM is the very best and as such is a big investment. Wallander WIVI has some expressive sax, but it doesn't do the raunchy growl very well. Chris Hein is pretty darn good, but also a big investment. If you have a limited budget, Saxlab is probably the better of the inexpensive plugins. With a little EQ and maybe a little tube saturation I'm sure you can tweak the tone to your liking.

However, any sax emulation is dependent on the performance. Emulating sax with a keyboard is challenging, but it can be done. With my Synthophone MIDI Sax (and years of playing acoustic sax) I can perform a convincing sax emulation with any sax synth or static sample, even a TX81z! lol

Do you plan on doing a lot of sax emulations or is this just for a tune or two? If it's just for a tune, then it might be better to hire a sax player or even a windcontrollerist who specializes in sax emulations. The advantage of using a windcontrollerist is that they can send you the MIDI file (as well as the audio) which you can study & learn all that goes into a convincing sax emulation.

hope this helps,
robosax

[ghettosynth]

Best growl I can get...
https://soundcloud.com/bigcat1969/growl-sax

It's fair. Now listen to Billy Joel. I know I'm being picky but I'm not settling here. If I can't get what I want I'll simply do without it.

No, I don't think that you're being too picky, that just doesn't sound that good. You might be judging the VSL sax to quickly though, that sounded good to me. I agree that it's hard to tell if the articulations will work specifically for you without a demo, but you can get a demo. If you have an eLicenser why not give it a demo?

I do think that a not insignificant part of that Billy Joel sound is in the production. Some EQ/compression/saturation/reverb are going to probably be needed to get any sax library in the same ballpark.

[KeithAdv]

yay! I've been lurking for years and finally a topic I can contribute to.

I've been doing sax emulations for 30 years and know just a wee bit about this very topic.

Thanks for the input, robosax. I appreciate the expertise. I have several Samplemodeling instruments and the TEC Breath Controller. Love 'em. However, I haven't gotten the sax ones yet. It will probably have to be a long wait until the next Black Friday for before I get those.

I swear--the best sax emulation I've had was a sax PCM card that I plugged into my Roland U-20 way-back-when. I had to make my own patch to give me a velocity-controlled growl. Haven't found anything that sounded as good since!

[mholloway]

Sample Modeling - the Sax brothers.

http://www.samplemodeling.com/en/products_saxes.php

it's a kontakt instrument. it's absolutely friggin amazing. You'll be using the expression pedal a lot.

they have some non-kontakt instruments, too, but I never checked them out, as I prefer using Kontakt.

but seriously, their instruments are amazing. easy to control, totally authentic sound.

-M

As I said above, you have to buy all 3 (comes out to over $300) and all I need is the tenor sax. I'm not paying over $300 for a tenor sax.

Well, then you don't want a great quality sampled Sax, do you?

There is nothing out there that is both amazingly good quality and also under 100 bucks.

So, tough luck for you I guess.

[robosax]

So I whipped this up to demonstrate SWAM Tenor played from a Synthophone. I haven't played this "Scenes..." solo in over 10 years, so it's not exact! lol Also, I haven't emulated a hard rock sax in quite awhile. Please realize that I spent only 20 minutes on it. I could probably get it almost exact if I put a little more time in. I used a little compression, EQ, delay & reverb.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/911 ... es-sax.mp3

Here's a better example of SWAM saxes, It's a circus tune I recently finished using SWAM Soprano, Alto, Tenor, & Bari. It's my one man band called, The Notta Sax Synthophone Quartet.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/911 ... Clowns.mp3

enjoy!
robo

[wagtunes]

Sample Modeling - the Sax brothers.

http://www.samplemodeling.com/en/products_saxes.php

it's a kontakt instrument. it's absolutely friggin amazing. You'll be using the expression pedal a lot.

they have some non-kontakt instruments, too, but I never checked them out, as I prefer using Kontakt.

but seriously, their instruments are amazing. easy to control, totally authentic sound.

-M

As I said above, you have to buy all 3 (comes out to over $300) and all I need is the tenor sax. I'm not paying over $300 for a tenor sax.

Well, then you don't want a great quality sampled Sax, do you?

There is nothing out there that is both amazingly good quality and also under 100 bucks.

So, tough luck for you I guess.

Where did I say under a hundred bucks? The Mr T, which is what I need, comes with 2 other sax's. That's why it's $300. If I could get just the Mr T, even if it cost me $150, it would be worth it. But I'm forced to buy a whole package of sax's that I don't need.

And if you calculate this on a per sax basis, they do in fact come out to $100 per sax.

Maybe one day they'll sell the Mr T separately and I'll get it.

[ghettosynth]

Sample Modeling - the Sax brothers.

http://www.samplemodeling.com/en/products_saxes.php

it's a kontakt instrument. it's absolutely friggin amazing. You'll be using the expression pedal a lot.

they have some non-kontakt instruments, too, but I never checked them out, as I prefer using Kontakt.

but seriously, their instruments are amazing. easy to control, totally authentic sound.

-M

As I said above, you have to buy all 3 (comes out to over $300) and all I need is the tenor sax. I'm not paying over $300 for a tenor sax.

Well, then you don't want a great quality sampled Sax, do you?

There is nothing out there that is both amazingly good quality and also under 100 bucks.

So, tough luck for you I guess.

Hold the phone, I'm not getting that wags is specifically asking for a "great quality sampled sax", per se, he's asking for one that can get close to the particular sound of that Billy Joel record. I don't play the sax at all. I do own one and I can get a scale out of it, but I'd sooner bet my life on a half court free throw than impressing anyone with my sax skills. That said, to me, and sorry if this is blasphemy, that Billy Joel solo sounds something of a one trick pop sax pony. It's lots of growl and yet more growl.

Is that really such a unique sound? I bet some of my romplers have a "Billy Joel Tenor" patch right next to the "Kenny G Soprano." What I'm trying to say is that I'd be surprised if there isn't a special purpose library out there somewhere that isn't necessarily the best, in a general sense, but gets closer to that, overused IMO, sound.

In any case, surely the question is worth a few pages of KVR speculation?