In all fairness, if they see a keyboard player, but hear a drummer, a bass player, a guitarist or two, some strings, a bunch of synths, three harmony parts and a partridge in a pear tree, what's wrong with playing a sax solo?

You already lost them at 'Hello', anyway, if you are shooting for realism!

A lot can be accomplished on the keys, but quite simply you can't come close to what a Wind Controller can do on a keyboard without having to sequence tons of controller data separately.

Thrilling notes, tonguing, lip pressure, bite, breath control, live attack, volume, expression, the sheer natural element to playing a wind controller. All these things are recorded in real-time without the player having to even give them a second thought. That's what puts the wind controller in a class of it's own.



To compare to a wind controller you would have to have access to the modulation values Depth and Speed in real time. Even at that your faking the wrong effect because vibrato effects volume more than anything else on a real instrument. Think of who you modulate the sound on the real flute. It's a variation in breath which controls volume firstly. Pitch only alters because of note stability.



So basically your performance will sound like each and every note was tongued. Nobody plays like that.

The right way to do this would be to edit your sound and actually use the Legato mode of the sound engine. Look at your Triton for example for the OSC's. You have Ploy, Mono and Legato modes you can assign to your sounds.



Just look at how your sounds on your Triton are constructed and you will see that the Z+ and Z- directions on your joystick and be programmed to do this far better and far more realistically.

You can apply speed and depth of pitch to control vibrato to the Z+ direction and then flip things right around and use the actual LFO running things like Trills on the Z- axis. Use the different waveforum shapes you have on your Triton.

For example the Guitar waveshape actually produces a totally realistic Trumpet Trill that you can control in both speed and depth in real-time.

I don't care how fast your finger is, there's no way you can pull off the effects anyway accurately each time by using the ribbon compared to actually doing the programming and setting up your sounds right in the first place. Just like your not using the Legato mode.

A trill effect is somthing totally different to a vibrto. The shape is not even close.



Not true of any KORG keyboard as I've just mentioned above.

I also bet every workstation can do this too. Not sure about arrangers though (except KORG), but then again I don't know of any arrange with a ribbon so you won't be doing any of this on one anyway.

Regards
James

My favorite instrument sounds on the PSR-S900 (and Tyros3) are the SA Sax, and the SA Concert Guitar.

They respond exceptionally well to legato playing, and the Sax even switches from poly to mono, automatically...playing legato also removes the attack on subsequent notes, adding to realism.

Am I going to fool anyone, especially someone who plays guitar or sax?

Nope, probably not, but 90% of the listeners really don't care...they think it sounds great...and I enjoy having those extra colors to add variety.

Ian

Finally something that makes sense.....
spot on Ian!!

How would you fatten up a trumpet solo ,eg. Sections are relatively easy ,but solo sounds good ,but thin. Do you double up and slightly detune one ?

BTW ,thanks to everyone. I had forgotten all of the elements that comprise a good emulation.

Bernie,

I found that on the S900, I can layer two SA trumpets (must be the same sound, and same octave), and it gives me a terrifically wicked mute trumpet...it might work on other brands.

The biggest mistake I hear when someone tries to emulate a wind instrument, is that they don't allow the virtual player to breathe.

That detail, and the unrealistic re-attacking of every note, are always a giveaway...Yamaha's Super Articulation takes care of the latter very well, but you really have to think about the former while you're playing...unless you have a wind player that is able to do "circular breathing".

Ian

Bernie,

You can also try adding a soft layer of synthetic strings, which does an excellent job with both the sax and trumpets.

Cheers,

Gary

HI GUYS!

This is a marvelous thread! Although I do not know what all the "Letter words" represent, I do sorta-kinda get the gist of what you are saying.

DIKI.... Your detailed descriptions are priceless...as are the comments added by the rest of the players....

Frequently when I play (daily) my Technics KN7000 I tweak the sounds, especially the alto sax, clarinet, and piano...till I get just the sound that is correct...to my ear. These 3 instruments are my fave's...

The 7K has so many avenues that permit tweaking of an instrument...much there I do not understand, so I just try different things, listen and make whatever changes seem appropriate till I get what I think I want...until next time....

Putting two of any instrument in the lead and second position does give a fuller richer sound that reaches much deeper to a soulful level... I can also change and tweak all the instruments in the accompaning rhythms....or mute them completely.... I find frequently that "less is more"...

Additionally, when the opportunity presents itself, I ask other players how my sounds work for them.... that too is very helpful. I would love to have one of you as my neighbor for at least long enough to have the opportunity to share some magical music together!

Please keep this sort of thread going...it is so much better than all the bantering and otherwise "pissing contests" you boys get into all too frequently.....

Happy playing!

Elizabeth....

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Elizabeth, drive your RV to Shreveport for the January Arranger Jam. You'll have lots of neighbors while you're here!
DonM

James, I'm not sure you quite got the point of my post. Sure, a wind controller trumps all, but we are keyboard players here, not sax players or flautists or clarinetists, or even great recorder players...

So, we HAVE to use the technique we already have.

I don't understand why you still think that vibrato is better left to LFO's. A finger vibrato on a guitar, or cello, or any other instrument that uses finger vibrato is FAR more nuanced and realistic that an LFO derived vibrato, simply because you can change depth and speed and shape and even phase (go down first, or go up first?) all by how you rock your finger. A pitch strip allows you to do this. Start deep and heavy, transition to light and fast in the middle of the note, and speed it up as you get to the end. What LFO is ever going to give you this (and different for each note)?

I'm sorry you don't think a finger is fast enough to get all the inflection and trill and vibrato accuracy you might want, but I'm afraid I have to disagree. Somehow, mysteriously, guitar players get ALL the speed and accuracy they want with bends, trills (AND 'thrills' ), hammer -ons and offs, and most importantly, vibrato. To the point where you can tell them apart JUST from listening to how they vibrato ONE note.

If they can do that using exactly the same technique on a fingerboard as we can use on a pitch strip (I have to confess, the KX-5 is by far the easiest to do this on, due to the angle of it in relation to your fingers is just like a guitar or bass), there's NO reason why you can't get this yourself.

As to the 'tonguing' part of playing, that's where using the strip to 'play' notes rather than finger them on the keyboard comes in. You strike a note at the beginning of a phrase, then put your finger on the strip at the point of the new note. Presto! No new attack transient, but a new, legato note. Is it as good as SA or Giga 'triggers'? In some ways no, in some ways, it's better. Use SA or key triggers, and the legato note is PERFECTLY in tune. Do it with the strip, and it is likely to be NOT... Whereupon, you either bend it closer to perfect (like a horn actually does) or leave it where it is because it is MORE perfectly in tune than equal temperment can do (and you still get vibrato or pitch instability at the new point, just like a real instrument).

The whole POINT of using the strip is to get away from the rigid equal temperment that playing on the keyboard forces you into. No horn player, cellist, guitarist or just about ANY acoustic musician plays so perfectly in tune, In fact, the little out of tune things are what give it character and scream 'real!' to your ears.

Finally, the thing about using a strip, as opposed to x and y axes of a joystick, or mod wheels and pitch wheels, is that it is an extension of something you already know is a REAL musical technique. We've been using fingers on a fretboard for thousands of years to get emotional expression out of simple instruments. Learning which way to push a joystick is an intellectual approach, rather than a visceral organic way of achieving the same end.

So, yes, a wind controller gives possibly the most direct control over many parameters at the same time. BUT... it only works for very well trained wind players. But for the rest of us, I find that picking up these basic techniques is FAR easier and natural to do on a strip. You are STILL using your conventional keyboard technique for most of the notes, simply using your LH to add considerably more inflection and nuance to the note than you can get with a joystick or wheels...

And, if your controller has a breath controller input (like my Kurzweil and the KX-5), you can add a lot of the timbre and volume elements that a wind controller do....