My favorite Jazz-funk tune: Street Life- the solos

Here I am playing the e-piano and sax solos of Street Life (Crusaders/ Randy Crawford) in the style of the original version and in the Tarantino/Jackie Brown soundtrack style. The sax comes from the Roland Integra, everything else from the MoXF.
http://youtu.be/cxIkDqhq8cQ

Loved the song well played, ...didn't like the Sax sound chosen needed some FX imo,.....would like to have listened to your own version Sax solo instead in this song also making it "your own"..

The MoXF groove was real nice & Funky also....good job!! ....
thanx for sharing.

Thanks. I like this Integra sax better than the saxophones I find in the MoXF. A bit of FX in the hard notes would be good, I agree. There's one Integra sax that has constant FX, I didn't like that. The solos depart a bit from the original (the second part of the second e-piano solo is my own one), because I played everything by ear. On the other hand I like the original solos so much that I try to reproduce most of them. Coming from classical piano and church organ, it's enough improvisation for me ;-)

Nice tune and well played electric piano....good sequence, too. The Sax sound wasn't very realistic, but that may have been because, on quite a few notes, it sounded more like a sax section, or a sax with added chorus effect (unless you were trying for that impression) and, at a few points, the notes bled into one another, something unlikely on a real sax.

Perhaps hard switching the sax sound to monophonic may help with the latter.

Otherwise, a great little piece and fine playing.

Ian

One of my real favorites to play. Crusaders; especially with Patty singing RULED!


Thanks!


R.

Actually, the sax tone used is the Integra's preset SuperNatural solo tenor sax. As a solo sax with superNatural features it should be set to monophonic mode (I'm gonna check, but I'm quite sure it is), so there can't be two notes sounding simultaneously. I also turn chorus effect off as a rule. Maybe you heard it mix with the background brass section? I think you just don't like the actual sound of the sax sample - and you know, I'm not convinced of the Integra saxes either, I said in earlier posts that surprisingly some of the BK-7m saxophones sound better than the SN-A Integra saxophones... The Italian Roland subsidiary (Roland Europe, now dissolved ;-( ) had created some samples for the arranger line which were never adopted for the Roland synthesizers including Integra...
Maybe I'll redo it with a BK-7m sax, or introduce my new Ketron SD 1000 for this purpose...

Maybe the extra notes I heard were from the background sax (brass) section...whatever the case, it did detract slightly from the sax itself, but I'm being picky.

On Yamaha's SA/SA2 saxes, the sounds aren't strictly mono...only when played a certain way, so, I thought Roland's SuperNatural might be set up in the same manner. Sometimes I'll hard set the voice to Mono on the panel, depending on what I'm after.

Actually, the Intergra sax sound itself is pretty good, and, although I'm a little spoiled by my Tyros4's SA2 Sax sounds, I thought overall it was authentic enough.

For me, the Sax is one of the most difficult sounds to mimic, and I've worked very, very hard to get it close, and even with SA2, I'm not always pleased with my results.

It's especially hard to get all the finer points of the sax while playing left hand chords, and although Yamaha's SA2 does help a lot, the best solos I can get are usually done as overdubs.

Are the BK-7m's saxes also SuperNatural? Do they switch from mono to poly depending on how they are played?

Ian

BTW...You are a fine player, and I really enjoyed your interpretation of the piece...you added just enough of your own touch to it.

Thanks. No, the BK-7m saxophones have no supernatural behavior, no automatic glissandi etc., it's just their samples sound quite nice, especially those of the breathy saxophones, which are not like that in the Integra.

Very nicely played ... you 'EAR' guys amaze me ...
thank you ...

Thanks. I just made an alternative version with a saxophone from the MoXF/Motif library 'Inspiration in a Flash', I think this sax is a bit more pleasant (but not perfect), and I played it an octave down to make it sound more relaxed.
http://youtu.be/WFN4-XxJiH4

I like this Sax much better nice job .....my only concern was that the EPiano was an octave to high for my taste upper register sounded a bit toyish,.....otherwise loved it!!

Thanx..

I think this saxophone issue is an example of how a sample can sound bad even if there is nothing unrealistic about the sound itself. The Integra sax does sound like a real sax if it is blown in a certain way, but that's not enough to make it sound good in a sequence. The MoXF sax may have been sampled from a sax player who might just have a nicer lipping and incorporates a natural vibrato in the sample. The Integra SN-A brass and sax tones don't have a sampled vibrato, the vibrato is produced by the behavior modeling, which has the advantage that its intensity can be controlled, BUT it never sounds as realistic as a sampled vibrato - that's one reason why I am more enthusiastic about the (older) Integra SRX expansions than about the SN-A tones. (But SRX expansions don't contain many noteworthy solo sounds, they are strong on orchestral sections etc.)

Some great playing there young man - really sounded great to me.

Gary

Thanks a lot! However I'm not really young any more, being on the wrong side of 40...

Very enjoyable. Great performance.

Thanks a lot! You're welcome to leave a like on Youtube if you want to ;-)