Who fancies a little fun comp.

[ianweb123]

i had a go at it, http://xhip.cjb.net/temp/public/badsax.mp3

Thats a goodie

[rsmus7]

here is my little fun addition

just a quick try,
the keyboard and the bass and the sax are all from the same synth
only the drums are jamstix, and not very good
but I dont want to spend much time editing everything, it should be fun,
or...

grab here:
PPT

[SARcazm]

[quote="ianweb123Sarcasm is never useless ! If it wasn't for sarcasm all other forms of wit would be proportionally lower.[/quote]

Wow! Thx Ian. Guess I can change my day job and become a clown now

[ianweb123]

Have you all given up on this one?

[himalaya]

Here's my 'sax' patch, or rather its distant synthesised cousin :
http://www.mediafire.com/?13zz0nnmnne

I hope this mediafire service works as I've never used them before.
EDIT. well, made first download and it works, and seems to be fast too.

Edit.
Oh well, mediafile servers are off. Below another link.
http://www.filefactory.com/file/2d56bf/

[funkadil]

i had a go at it, the lower register is much better than the high register. it needs a bit more tweaking but it is ok so far.

http://xhip.cjb.net/temp/public/badsax.adxi
http://xhip.cjb.net/temp/public/badsax.mp3

you shouldnt have to think hard to guess which synth i used

oh, i was going for a baritone timbre rather than the plain reed tenor timbre.. they used a baritone in the pinkpanther theme right?

Ooh. Cool patch.

[gsoto]

Ok, aciddose loses 10 points for not sticking to the melody, rsmus loses 5 for trying to "mask" the sound with other instruments, and himalaya -3 for playing wrong the first part.


Seriously speaking, I like the sounds. It's hard to pick one because they are all so different.
ian: while clearly synthetic, has a metallic character that is not present in the others; dynamically, it's also the closest one to the original song.
coxy: has a nice sax timbre but lacks some modulation/liveness.
aciddose: cool sound, and a broad range. Not sure if it sounds like a sax, though.
rsmus: powerful sound but sometimes it gets far away from a real sax.
Himalaya: very cool! The most "acoustic" one, but the timbre isn't "saxy" enough.

It would be instructive to hear your approaches to modeling the sound.
Maybe I'll give it a go later.

[aciddose]

mine definitely sounds like a baritone sax (go to new orleans for some examples!) since i was comparing side-to-side with samples as i patched it.

it is really difficult to do anything like the muting, changes in timbre you can get by blowing hard/soft, movement of the lips, different ways in which the fingering can happen. so i really do not think anybody will get an even half-decent sax sound from any synth other than one made specifically for producing sax sounds. even those suck!

i was hoping someone could come up with a better patch than mine, more realistic, nobody has yet. the baritone's range is only 1 1/2 octaves i think (or less?) and it is a bass instrument, that should explain why the top octaves for my patch do not sound very good. ok, it doesnt sound great in the low octaves either, but it is pretty close for 5 minutes of effort.

http://xhip.cjb.net/temp/public/ppanther.mid - what is really needed is someone with a BC and BC->pitchbend+cc+velo convertor with sax coefficents to create a more accurate midi stream to use as source material. no matter how realistic your patch is, even if you're controlling a real bloody sax from some pc/midi->sax interface, it'll still sound shit if you're using plain notes without any of the modulations/emphasis.

i added a little PB in this mid, but the velo totally sucks. the velo should be ryhthmic and all-over-the-map if it were to sound like a real sax. the pitchbend should be tied into the velo. very hard notes bend down. initally hard breath, then relaxing. soft attacking notes should bend up, initially soft breath, then increasing. notes should also be able to fade off, and the bend should be tied in there too, same deal. hard release = bend up, soft fade-out release = bend down.

a majority of the sound of real world instruments comes from the player, not just the instrument. actually, a majority of the sound of subtractive synthesizers comes from the player too believe it or not.

http://xhip.cjb.net/temp/public/panth000.mp3

this is pretty terrible, sounds bland. hardly any modulation. i dont have time to dink around manually adding pitchbends, velocities and ccs though.

[himalaya]

and himalaya -3 for playing wrong the first part.

Sorry. Played it by ear from memory. It was the sound I was after, rather than a 100% melodic accuracy.

Himalaya: very cool! The most "acoustic" one, but the timbre isn't "saxy" enough.

Thanks ! I don't think I could make it more real with the synth I used.

It would be instructive to hear your approaches to modeling the sound

It would be more easy to arrive at the sound with some of the PM synths I have, but I thought the challange would be more exciting with a **** instead. Should we reveal all after inaweb123 makes the call ?

[ianweb123]

Thanks all of you for taking part.. Along with piano, i feel that sax has got to be the hardest instrument to even come close to getting right..

Here is another try from me, still a million miles away, and nowhere near as good as some of those already submitted above..

IMHO it is possible to use various gimmicks (auto pitch bend at the start of each note, a little chiff of pink noise also at the start etc.) to give a hint of the right tone, but as aciddose hinted it is almost impossible to get the variety of different nuances that are at a real sax players disposal..

I do feel that there is somebody out there that has got a lot closer with a big modular or something like that, and of course we have all heard ziokillers beta, but unless there are any late-comers we can start discussing what we used and how we used if if you wish.

[aciddose]

mine was xhip, a couple oscs synced, pulsewaves, pw tweaked slightly. some pink noise mixed with an audiorate sine modulating the frequency of both oscs. the filter with fairly low level of envelope modulation, with frequency/feedback modulation by the input signal. in the 2nd mp3 i used velocity->sustain level.

the most important influence on the sound is due to the modulation of the filter by the input signal which isnt possible on most non-modular subtractives. the second most important thing is the audio rate frequency modulation which causes some variations in timbre based upon frequency, this in a real sax would be due to the properties of the player's lip vibration. the pink noise modulation is the least important factor, the patch actually in my opinion sounds a bit better with lower depth on that, but in the current version of xhip it isnt possible to apply different modulation depths on A/B modulators, instead they're added togeather and scaled once, like in a banana-modular.

the other ones sounded just like 40%-50% pulsewaves with filter sweeps to me

[gsoto]

gsoto_pink_panther.mp3

[Caleb]

So aciddose - did the experience give you any ideas for the improvement of Xhip?

Regards
Caleb

[himalaya]

gsoto_pink_panther.mp3

That's rather nice ! The sustain part of the sound is very good. However the attack sounds a bit like a harmonica.

[dalor]

gsoto_pink_panther.mp3

Very interesting! What synth did you use for this?