Saxlab, would you recommend?

[Lotuzia]

Well I'm soon to be the proud owner of a shiny copy of Saxlab I'm wondering about how to get a breath controller into my setup, are there stand-alone controllers, and what about midi wind controllers? I played clarinet and sax in gradeschool, I'd actually love to get good at it, a keyboard is cool but something about fingers on keys and blowing in the wind is just too cool.

Yamaha has a cheap breath controller, and I use it sometimes on a Dx7 II. It only controls target parameters that are assigned to midi CC2 in a synth/vsti.

Its not so easy to use nut if you practise you can have some nice results.

A turnaround is to map thru your host an expression pedal (cc4) to breath control, wich I used a lot with the VL when it was working OK.

Wind controllers are much more complete controllers, as you can play them like a sax, woodwinds etc, and emit midi notes. But I never played one. You can find some specialised sites for these little beast with google. THe Ewi seems to works fine, according to a lot of musicians I've met.

Hope it helps.

[braj]

I'm thinking of getting an Akai, they start $270, they seem really solid and come with an Aria plugin too. Saxlab is so nice, but one thing I find myself doing is holding notes way too long, beyond the breath of a horn player, so playing with a wind controller should resolve that Even when I play guitar, i basically approach it like a horn, anyhow I'm glad to finally have Saxlab it really sings, there aren't that many instruments that I can just sit there and play for an hour.

[Spitfire31]

IMO the best Plug-in for easy usage and quick results. For short patterns for pop or dance Saxlab it's great.
But I would not use it for a Smooth Jazz production I think the other libs are more realistic when used with the switches, articulations and stuff. But are often also more complicated to use.

I concur absolutely. SaxLab is fine for a background role in a mix, no doubt about that. To be fair, it was conceived at a time when sophisticated scripting and modelling was in its infancy.

However, if you need a sax that can confidently take the center stage in a solo role, there's nothing to touch the Samplemodelling family of sax instruments, I believe.

Different price range, unfortunately.

Best,

Joachim

[braj]

Yeah I'm just playing solo at home, my wife gave me a rare compliment on my playing tonight so I'm happy. It sounds much much better than a normal straight sampled instrument for example, for what I need and the price I paid Saxlab2 is extremely satisfying, I am incredibly happy to have it!