I appreciate what you are saying, James, but it is an imperfect world. While a wind controller is going to get the best out of a wind sound, sadly, it's not an option for the keyboardist, so what is a boy to do?

I am not saying that the techniques I describe will make a sax sound indistinguishable from the real thing. But they WILL add an entirely new level of realism compared to simply using a bender.

And I'm STILL not sure you get the legato detached thing. The idea is you hit AND HOLD the key note, then use the strip to 'jump' to the new note. The attack transient is NOT played again, only the sustain or legato part of the sample. Same thing with trills. Hit and hold the note (there's the tonguing), then use the strip to tap very quickly (or slowly) at any point you want. Main thing is, you are NEVER going to be able to precisely hit the same point over and over, and this is going to emulate a real player (who can't do that either ).

And no, you are not going to be able to legato whole phrases, but with a combination of a sound that the attack transient (the tonguing) is emphasized when hit hard, so lower velocity notes are not so spitty and tongued, and using the strip to play notes around the played one to give true legato, you can certainly add another layer of realism. Is it perfect? Of course not. Neither is a wind controller. Is it better than a bend wheel? You bet!

A trill may be able to vary in depth and intensity, but on most arrangers, there isn't any way to do a trill at all, unless you retask the LFO from vibrato. Whereupon, you no longer have that as an option. But a strip, while it won't make the PERFECT trill, makes a FAR better one than most arrangers can (or any keyboard without a strip). Yes, there's always compromise, but there is less of one when you DO have a strip. Main thing is, this ONE gestural controller does bends, trills, legato notes (non-attacked notes, if you want to be more precise), hammer ons and offs, vibrato, intonation adjustment and many other things. From the ONE controller, with no fancy voice programming. For the PLAYER, this is invaluable, as you are not constantly darting between one place and another to do these many different tasks.

For me, at least, the goal isn't to be perfect. The goal is simply to be as good as you can... I've been using the KX-5 for donkey's years for this exact purpose, and currently, live, into quite an average module (little Roland MG-S64) that isn't anywhere near state of the art sampling, But I continually get real sax players come up to me and tell me that's the closest they ever heard anyone get to nailing what a sax does (on a keyboard)... If it's good enough for THEM, it's good enough for me.

Would I like something better? Sure I would. But I haven't found it yet in anything that is so tactile and intuitive to play. SA would be great, but so far, nothing's out in a small module that tempts me (MotifXS seems to implement SA a bit differently to the Tyros).

Guess I'll have to break out the KX-5 and make Donny ecstatic and record a few examples (on the other hand, just like the last thing I did, Donny will probably pretend I didn't do it and keep on like a stuck record ). Will it beat a wind controller? Probably not. But I'm not a wind player...! For controlling ROMPLERS (rather than synth engines optimized for wind control), it's the best thing I've found so far... It'll certainly beat anything WITHOUT a ribbon