Notes_Norton

"Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" - Cannonball Adderley With his King, Super 20 sax, one of the greatest ever made.... Of course, other musicians knew about this, not the general public, so it was a great opportunity for a pop group to add words and release as a single "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" - The Buckinghams

Tropicana Nights - Paquito D'Rivera Full album: A delightful modern take on classic mid-20th century Cuban music. Paquito is a very good sax player, too.

"Mercy Mercy" - Don Covay and the Goodtimers

Nothing wrong with hooters IMO. Listening to: Bop For Kerouac - Mark Murphy & Richie Cole IMHO one great jazz singer and one great alto sax player at the top of their game.

Before I go on, there is more than one right way to do most anything, and there might even be a better way than the way I do it. I play 7 instruments and voice but sax is my primary. We are always more critical on the instruments we play so if I am going to emulate a sax, flute, guitar, bass, or drums I am more critical than if I'm emulating a trombone or harmonica. In the wind synth community we call it Home Instrument Bias. Keyboards are easier with keyboard controllers as you can't help but play them like a keyboard. On the sax there is pitch shift done with the reed (vibrato) and volume shift done with the diaphragm (tremolo). Many sax and wind synth players use those two terms to differentiate the two. For vibrato I use good old pitch bend, for tremolo I prefer cc2 (breath) for wind instruments, if the synth doesn't recognize cc2, I'll go with cc11 (expression) as a second choice. As far as a sine wave or U shaped wave is concerned, when playing the sax, the shape, insensitivity and speed of the vibrato depends on the song and can change drastically during the hold of a single note. I'd do it with a wind controller, or a joystick (set for less than a half step total travel) to get more realistic changes as the time goes by. On an EWI I'd use the pitch bend plates. If you are wanting to do a faithful emulation of an instrument, you need to understand its limitations and it's capabilities. These are controlled by both the player and the construction of the instrument. Some things about saxophone (in no particular order, or simply in the order I think of them - thinking out loud here) One note at a time and the timbre gets brighter as the notes get higher and also with increasing volume Vibrato is usually done with the reed, and it's much easier to relax and let the pitch to flat than to bite harder and make the pitch go higher. Plus the pitch bend is not linear, the same amount of lip movement makes more pitch bend as you go lower in pitch. So vibrato goes below pitch and back. If you do that LFO thing where it goes over and under by the same degree, it won't sound sax-like Vibrato is hardly ever constant like a LFO but is done in context with the music and up to the player's vision, and it often changes in real time during the duration of the note Tone changes with vibrato, darker when the note is flatter and brighter when it moves sharper Sax players often like to scoop up to the note. A little like a guitarist might by playing a not one fret lower and bending it up to pitch, but not as much as a half step flat. Sax players can change the tone and the vowel sound by both changing their embouchure and the shape of their oral cavity to get tones that resemble ooh and aah. Sometimes in a run I'll ooh-aah-ooh-aah... all the way up or down. Sax players can change their breath support and embouchure to get mellow, airy subtones to overblowing the horn for some bright distortion. The tone is rarely constant throughout any phrase Sax players can add distortion with their throat or more severely flutter tongue Sax players can attack the note in very different ways from slurs (no articulation) to lightly touching the reed (legato) through slapping the reed Breath force can be changed at will, making the attack a severe accent or a slow rise. You can make it yell "Hey!" "Mmm" or anything in between Every note is not attacked the same way. Using one sample sometimes will kill sax expression if it attacks the note the same way every time. Breath force can make the volume rise and fall for expressiveness as a note is being held, and the timbre changes with those volume changes As the sax changes register (C# to D in the saxes key - tenor is a Bb instrument, alto Eb) it changes tone there is a lot more, and they will come after I hit submit but that's enough to get started. Each instrument has it's quirks, and that's what makes it sound like that instrument. Tone is secondary to making the nuances of the instrument come out. After all when a comedian does an impression of the President or other famous person, he or she doesn't have the same voice, but relies on copping their expressive patterns. This is what you need to do when doing a good emulation of another instrument. If you want a sax, you need to give the part "true sax nature" or it won't sound right no matter what patch and how good the tone is. You lean on the things your synth can do that emulate the instrument in question, and you avoid the things it cannot do. That is unless you don't want a faithful emulation and want something different, which is OK too. All this goes to other instruments. One very different example. MIDI drum rolls often sound like machine guns. When I do a single stroke roll on a drum, my right hand hits a bit harder than the left because it's stronger. That makes that hand brighter and louder. The left hand being weaker often lags an almost imperceptible bit (perhaps a clock tic or two in MIDI @196). Plus both sticks do not hit the drum in the exact same place, and as you move around the drum the tone changes. You can do something that approaches a single stroke roll that doesn't sound like a machine gun by detuning every other note a tiny bit, lowing it's volume a bit, and delaying that note a clock tic or two. The great sax player, Charlie Parker once said, "You don't play the sax, you let the sax play you." That goes for every instrument, you can't play a piano like a guitar or a trombone like a sax. So you have to figure out how the instrument you want to emulate plays the player, and that's your starting point. Insights and incites by Notes

I am a sax and both wind and keyboard synth player. Most reed instruments use lip vibrato (pitch) more than diaphragm vibrato (volume). Flute players use diaphragm more although rolling the flute under your lip will create pitch bends. For simplicity many of us call lip vibrato and diaphragm tremolo. I'll address vibrato (not tremolo) 1) When reed players are using vibrato the pitch usually goes from pitch, down to under pitch and back. If it ever goes sharp, it's not much. Why? It's the nature of the beast. It takes more effort to bend higher than the pitch. 2) On reed instruments, as the tone goes below pitch is gets darker, and as it goes back up to pitch it gets brighter. Your synth needs to do this or it won't sound quite right. The Physical Modeling Yamaha VL70m does this well (sadly out of production) 3) Constant speed like an LFO gives is rarely used. Sometimes starting slow, gradually increasing, and sometimes slowing again. Sometimes a subdivision of the tempo. Sometimes a contrast of the tempo (triplet feel over a straight eighth note rhythm and other variations). Sometimes not at all. It depends on the note, it's context in the emotional part of the song, and the artistic (or non-artistic) urges of the player. 4) Again depending on the song and context, some notes are hit flat for tension and brought up to pitch before engaging vibrato 5) Not only speed but intensity is governed by the note in it's context in the song. 6) It's not usually a sine wave but the amount of pitch vs a period of time is not sinusoidal. The player and the characteristics of the reed/mouthpiece/horn bore decides. In other words, vibrato is not an on/off, LFO deal. It's an artistic device used by many reed players to enhance the emotional impact of the song. Rather than LFO you might try using a joystick and setting the pitch bend to something less than a half step. I usually use a Wind MIDI Controller when I want to put reed and brass parts into a song (Yamaha WX5). I hope this helps. Insights and incites by Notes

I'm a recent arrival here, but the nice folks with great senses of humor welcomed me and made me feel at home. Thanks y'all. Notes

"Up Jumped The Rabbit" - Sam Butera It's not the original version, but Sam was one great sax player and a decent singer. Even though there ain't much sax on this cut, his playing is worthy of mention. One of the best New Orleans style sax players of the 20th century.

A great collaboration IMO - must have been a lot of work to pull it off and definitely worth it ☝️ Listening to Vol 1 (above) gave me a desire for Vol 2 (listing on CD but it's also on UTube) Honkers And Bar Walkers Vol 2 - Various Artists It's old-time music but still good IMO

Loud sounds good to me, but it's bad for me. Probably most people which is why in the 1990s and up, pop music was extremely compressed to sound louder on the radio. That became known as the "loudness wars". Years ago I knew a drummer (he is now in the 'great gig in the sky') who played standards jazz to the 55+ people in the 1980s. They played small settings, and never played all that loud. Probably at the drum kt about 90-100 db. He kept buying brighter and brighter cymbals because his high frequency was so damaged that he couldn't hear them well. I think it's OK if we damage ourselves for our craft. It's a freedom. But I don't think it's OK to harm somebody else permanently. Notes

Honkers And Bar Walkers - Various Artists A former sax student of mine turned me on to this (and Volume II) years ago. I'm listening to it on CD but it's also on UTube. It's sax therapy.

Over Under Sideways Down - Yardbirds A classic...

I used to know a guy who had one of these, along with a regular contrabass and everything all the way up to a sopranino. He was a very talented instrument repairman but eventually retired. Did a lot of club dates with various orchestras too. Don't know what he's up to now. There is one instrument I know that takes more air than that. The flute. (Believe it) With the flute most of the air is wasted and not going through the instrument. But I'd rather schlep the flute to the gig than a subcontrabass any day.

"Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child" - traditional spiritual

Runaway - Del Shannon But I like the Bonnie Raitt version better

IMHO the best version of T-Bone Walker's "Call It Stormy Monday" aka "Stormy Monday Blues" is by Bobby "Blue" Bland Stormy Monday Blues = Bobby "Blue" Bland Call It Stormy Monday - T-Bone Walker

You Don't Have To Be A Star - Marilyn McCoo & Billy Davis Jr.

I don't remember the 60s. At least after 1964.

I'll be dog gone.

'Round Midnight - Thelonious Monk

Even when he feels sheepish?

I want to a Chines restaurant where they decided to Wok their dog.

"Who Are You" - The Who (or "Hu R U" - The Hu) ?

^^^ one of my favorite Henley songs ^^^ While we are at the laundromat...