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Your experience with sax VI's?

bill5

Senior Member
Casually window shopping and wondering. I think a good basic one, also free, but it's just solo and little in the way of articulations etc is the DVS sax. Not amazing, but if all you're doing is basic stuff, accompaniment etc it can be enough.

I have tried Saxlab and did not care for at all.

Others? I imagine Chris Hein's is highly regarded.
 
Casually window shopping and wondering. I think a good basic one, also free, but it's just solo and little in the way of articulations etc is the DVS sax. Not amazing, but if all you're doing is basic stuff, accompaniment etc it can be enough.

I have tried Saxlab and did not care for at all.

Others? I imagine Chris Hein's is highly regarded.

Audio Modeling Saxophones.
 
If their video demos are any indication, I'll have to disagree. I think it might be the performers though...for the most part they are playing it more like a keyboard than a sax.
 
Checked Chris Hein's Compact Pro - far better than anything else I've heard so far, at least on initial listen.
 
Depends what you are doing. Demos sound great but end up being accordions by the time you play with them in full combat :)

I have not found any better than a combo of Audio Modelling/ Sample Modelling with BBB. You will not find a more expressive sax than Sample Modelling and it is all about phrasing and articulations partic for big band.

Broadway Big Band better for falloffs and shorts to me plus adds some genuine life to an ensemble sound with imperfect but good enough tuning - but each to their own.

BBB Lites is fine - you don't need the full version.
 
Thanks - yeah that's the thing, even the demos sounded accordian-like to me with AM. But it's all subjective, I'm sure others disagree and that's fine. My opinion is only that. :) Oh not doing any big band or anything cinematic, more rock/pop/R&B etc, a little jazz perhaps but that would probably be pushing it for a VI.
 
So far, AM Saxophones are tops for me. Yes, the keyboard player on the demo played it like well, a keyboard player.
But the most important part of the demo is showcasing the sound of the modeled sax.
 
Haven't used them yet, but the latest 8Dio saxes seem very well done, albeit definitely jazz arts, not really a classical sound.
I'll check that out. Thanks!

Edit: I just looked. For $250 I get tenor and baritone saxes. No alto or soprano. That's so stupid it's hilarious. So is the fact that sax isn't listed anywhere that I saw...I had to use their search function. Maybe they're hiding because they're ashamed of it? :)
 
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Thx, but I'll wait for the full package! Not like I was ready to buy a sax VI tomorrow, so hopefully it all works out. Any rough idea what "on the way" means? Like next month, next year etc?
 
Chris Hein's jazz-oriented horns collection is outstanding. I use it more for section work than solos, where I'm more inclined to go for Audio Modeling with a Yamaha WX5 wind controller, but the timbre is more pleasing to me with Hein's stuff (and he provides MANY choices for each instrument, just as AM do), so I find it blends better in larger arrangements. The only way (even with massive programming, for VSL or Hein) that I can get more realistic phrasing-wise than AM is to play my actual saxes, but I do too much of my work late at night. :)
 
Casually window shopping and wondering. I think a good basic one, also free, but it's just solo and little in the way of articulations etc is the DVS sax. Not amazing, but if all you're doing is basic stuff, accompaniment etc it can be enough.

I have tried Saxlab and did not care for at all.

Others? I imagine Chris Hein's is highly regarded.
Casually window shopping and wondering. I think a good basic one, also free, but it's just solo and little in the way of articulations etc is the DVS sax. Not amazing, but if all you're doing is basic stuff, accompaniment etc it can be enough.

I have tried Saxlab and did not care for at all.

Others? I imagine Chris Hein's is highly regarded.


As a Tenor Sax player I have found only one Tenor Sax that is both realistic and expressive and that’s the Super Articulated ones I have on my Yamaha Tyros 3. It was the reason I bought the keyboard. Also for Sampled Sax to sound real you have to play like a Sax player and not a keyboard or piano player. This is critical and true of all Sampled Acoustic instruments such as Cello, Violin, Guitar, etc. You have to play them as you would the real thing. Most Sax demos are played too staccato or with runs that sound like someone playing a piano.

Now so far the Chris Hein solo saxes are the next best to my ears. Especially the Alto which for some reason seems to be the hardest to sample correctly. Most sound like Harmonicas. The Vienna Saxes may not be too bad but it’s hard to tell from the demos which are terrible. As to Modeled Saxes, I haven’t heard any that are convincing. EW is scheduled to release a Pop Brass library. Maybe they will surprise me. I’m always on the lookout for Sax libraries especially a realistic Alto.
 
Another vote for AudioModeling. But you'll want a breath or wind controller to get the most out of it.
 
It depends on whether you are looking for jazz saxophones or for classical saxophones. There is a cornucopia of jazz saxophone libraries and VSTi's, but sadly, not even a single library of classical saxophones.
 
Huh? VSL Saxophones has been out for eons, and is incredible-sounding -- just a bit tougher to work with for idiomatic playing, compared to SWAM. A gazillion articulations though, so you can make it happen, with perhaps a limitation on control over vibrato details compared to SWAM. VSL Saxophones was actually the first sample library I ever bought, precisely because it was the first good option.
 
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I've been getting some great performance out of the VSL saxes. I do find that I can't get a very aggressive sound out of them, but overall they've worked out great for me.
 
I think it depends on the voicing. Also the articulations. I haven't used them in a few months as I've been focusing on polishing up percussion tracks, but my recollection is that some of the marcato patches get a bit growly. Maybe not aggressive enough for jazz.

The Soprano Sax from CMusic can be good for solos, and the Chris Hein stuff for section work (a bit better than the CMusic stuff for that purpose). I think of all of that as placeholders for the most part, except maybe section work, where having three or four different players and instrument models for each sax voice really works wonders when using Chris Hein's jazz library.
 
Shamelessly gonna post this one again here, so here's a pop/rock sax solo done with AM.



Granted, there are a couple of lines which are nearly impossible to pull (the whole solo started as a joke in the first place) off and it could had been molded even more realistically, but this is how you can make the AM tenor sax sound played with keyboards and utilizing just some (expr/vib/growl) CC's.
 
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