SX900 - Best Saxophone

[Pino]

SX-900 - Expansion pack - Europe - Italian Tenor Sax.
This pack is already on the SX900 (save the voice to USER)

I think this is a nice smoochy sax - like the lounge bar sax player. 🎷
Plays nicely with a Bossa or a 4 piece Jazzy style, good sound if your doing restaurant or a hotel work. 😀

Don't know if it's the best but I play this one a lot, it's a great multi-sampled, velocity layered sax, meaning of you press the keys a little harder then the growl sax comes through and the growl sax already has FX sampled into it.. 👍

First song that came to my mind was "Fly me to the moon", played this one 100s of times over the years but haven't played it or even  played a 'Bossa' for many years now, not so much requested nowadays. 😢

Recorded this on the first 'take' just to show how much more expressive this sax is over the standard sax in the 'style intro'.

If you like it, them come back with a little comment here.

Pino

https://app.box.com/s/aqfyt6qv1gx22nw3ytvguphlduqtjl5i

[alanclare]

Lovely. The tenor saxes are my favourite instruments. Is it possible to have this voice to use in my s970?

Alan

[Pino]

Not sure about the S970, S975 can, it's got some memory for packs

I think YAMAHA has pulled a brilliant move here (for them) and they will sell 100s of keyboards
Whoever has and older keyboards without the memory to load packs will surely want to upgrade to take advantage of the FREE packs.

I have the 6 FREE packs on my SX900, apart from this saxophone, nothing to write home about, already got better on my SX, let's hope the premium packs have something better or it's back to sampling my own voices and editing my own styles.

Pino

[Toril S]

Hello Pino. Very nice sax sound, and very nicely played too!

[alanclare]

Pino

Wow, that was fast! I'm pretty sure that if, as you say, the 975 can use the pack, it should load in the 970. I'll have a look later. Thank you.

Alan

[ton37]

Thanks Pino, good sound. Luckily other members who haven't can in short time try it out. I have all the Yamm. packs (Ultimately bought one, the rest through all kinds of bonus offer or trade-in). There is nice stuff, both styles and voices. In my opinion, the third party packs are often better or more 'unique'.  I miss my keyboard as I'm caravanning for the moment.  Thans for sharing and smooth playing with feeling.

[EileenL]

That is certainly a very nice Sax. Must admit I did not bother much with these packs as I loaded in my packs from Genos which work very well.

[Jan-Eve]

Very nice sax! I often remark on the way people play sax and trumpet on keyboards.
One must have pauses between the notes. So the saxophonist have a chance to breath. Then it sounds more realistic... But that is my private reflection... All the best from Jan - Eve.

[andyg]

One must have pauses between the notes. So the saxophonist have a chance to breath. Then it sounds more realistic...

Absolutely. ALL instruments played with breath in real life must have breathing spaces when emulated on keyboard- it's something I get my students to do from a very early stage, and natural phrasing (or the lack of it) is always noted by examiners! I've been known to comment along the lines of 'Nicely played, but the sax player is now dead as he hasn't taken a breath for three minutes!' (OK there are players out there who have mastered circular breathing, but they also know when to phrase!)

And, to be honest, proper phrasing is important for all instrument emulations. Sadly it's often missed out.

[EileenL]

Yes Andy,
  I have become quite out of breath when listening to some wind instrument pieces when no breath has been taken. I find myself holding my breath while waiting.

[Toril S]

The keyboard doesn't need to breath, it's a heap of plastic and circuits
But, to be serious I much appreciate the advice to give room for breath, it is easy to forget.

[Pino]

Jan & Andy
Yes, I am aware of the sax breathing, easy to do when you know the song.

My concentration went into getting the notes in the right order rather than my playing technique, not played this song for years.

I just wanted to show other forum players how versatile this sax is.
It was all recorded and done in a few minutes,

Guys, it's all very well talking about it but where's your examples, every time I post something on this forum that I think will benefit other musicians I always back it up with a photo, a song or a style or whatever,
No dis-respect here, forum player's are eager to learn new tricks,
Please upload your examples of playing a saxophone with expression,
Best way to learn is to listen to others playing.😀

Pino.

[mikf]

Pino, there has been a couple of recordings put up here that are excellent at emulating sax, one was by someone who is a pro sax player so it is natural for him. But I could not locate it. However, the best thing is generally not to listen to recordings on the forum, because in all honesty very few emulate instruments well, but to listen to real sax players. Then try to emulate that phrasing.
I think good phrasing has more to do with how you think about and hear songs in your head than physical technique. A player occupied with making sure the right notes are in the right place is never going to sound good, they have to be thinking about how they want it to sound.
Mike

[Genos!]

I heard quite a few wrong notes for starters, but I didn't hear any growl. What I heard is a sax player having trouble clearing the spit out off his mouthpiece that is badly affecting his lower register. I guess if you want a real sax sound, then get a real sax player. A keyboard player, no matter how good, is not a sax player. And a keyboard player that doesn't play saxophone, well I'll be nice and not say anything negative at this time. Furthermore, I'm have trouble believing that the high notes and the lower notes are coming from the same instrument player combination.

[Pino]

I heard quite a few wrong notes for starters, but I didn't hear any growl. What I heard is a sax player having trouble clearing the spit out off his mouthpiece that is badly affecting his lower register.

Genos, judging by the instruments you own I would say that you are a very capable musician, but, why are you so angry, did I upset you, was my 5 minute knock up sample so bad that you had to post here on how bad it was.

So I found a very usable saxophone tucked away on one of the packs and decided to tell SX900 players about it and I admit it, the playing was rubbish but that wasn't the message and I can play 100 times better than that.

If you are that good then upload your own 'take' here on how expressive saxophone should be played on the sx900 arranger keyboard, your a real sax player ain't you, I would expect perfection from you.

No wonder that there are more talkers than players on this forum.

Pino

https://app.box.com/s/aqfyt6qv1gx22nw3ytvguphlduqtjl5i

[Toril S]

Pino, thank you for demonstrating that great sax sound and bringing our attention to it! People lost sight of the topic here!

[hans1966]

Hi guys, I think the important thing here is to enjoy the instrument.

We are certainly not saxophonists or guitarists, but we enjoy the wonderful sounds that come from our keyboards.

Next I want to tell you that I started today a new series of videos that I have called EXPERIMENTAL H. (Hans)
these are especially short videos of a maximum duration of one and a half minutes, where I show some voices, styles and characteristics of the SX900

Here are the first two, I hope you like it.

Regards. Hans

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqBK4_9WvxE

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

[EileenL]

Very good Sax demo giving the player time to breath.

[mikf]

I don't think we really need told, especially in the terms Genos! chose, that a great sax player playing a real instrument is always going to be much better than anything most of us can do on the arranger. It is obvious.  But the better the voice and playing technique the better the result. So Pino posting a voice he likes and reasonable comments on technique are all helpful and what this forum is about.
mike

[Pino]

MIke, I agree with you, Genos was out of order and he didn't come back to substantiate his claim.
I came here to the SX900 forum to point to other SX players to a better saxophone voice, I did a quick rough sketch of what it could sound like, full stop, should have been that simple and that's what this forum should be about

No further comment from me.

Pino

[hans1966]

Very good Sax demo giving the player time to breath.

EileenL, thank you very much for your words, they are highly appreciated. Hans

[hans1966]

Hi Pino, you are a great musician and I admire you.
Please, continue to share your talent with us. a hug!. Hans

[Aquilauno]

I love this post... great Pino

[panos]

I am just an amateur but Pino's cover sounded nice for my taste.
You don't have to follow the exact and every single note of the melody line of the original if you don't want to.There are no lyrics heard on this cover to follow anyway your playing.
So instead for each and single syllable of the lyrics that would "demand" a specific note or notes,you could improvise and play more notes that fit with the chord,or "delay" some notes playing but always end up to the note that is crucial to the melody line and probably better not to hit notes outside the key if you are not a real skillful composer so you know what you are doing.
If we search the internet probably we will find a lot of more or less different versions of this song as for every other song.

Yes it might sounded a little weird at first just because I am used to hear that song on a higher octave but I can imagine a man with a bass voice singing it softly without driving the attention with unnecessary highs and lows trying to impress.(The big "WOW" of the song is it's brilliant melody,no need more)

How much this specific saxophone sounds realistic? I cannot tell since I don't play any other instrument but I have heard other sax and voices from other keyboards that sounded less realistic by far to me.All notes the same volume,no sart! and stuff like that.
Of course everyone has got his own taste in sound so I liked Pino's cover.
Sorry about that to the saxophone players

Hans really great to show how a guitar sound should be played with lot's of notes each time to sound as closer as possible to the acoustic guitar playing.

[hans1966]

Hello Panos, thank you very much for your kind words. I was actually trying to emulate a flamenco guitar, so I used this flamenco guitar sound that comes from the factory on the keyboard, and of course the Rumba Guitar style.

As I mentioned before, I have started creating videos that I have called experimental, because they are small samples of songs with a maximum duration of one and a half minutes, where I try to show or highlight some voices and characteristics of the SX900. Regards. Hans