DSI S A X O P H O N E S

The Feedback feature on the Mopho, along with Audio Mod, present the possibility of making expressive, realistic-enough, synthetic Saxophones.

The Feedback on OSC1 creates enough saturation to push a good amount of the signal's energy into the mid-band.  The Audio Mod subtly boosts the high-band without having to manipulate the Filter Cutoff frequency (which to me always sounds artificial).  The two Pulse waves are programed to emulate the first four partials (low-band) of the Saxophone.

There will be five Programs submitted in the end, which will eventually bear a v1.x:

1. Baritone 
2. Aggressive Tenor - Coleman Hawkins style
3. Round Tenor - Hank Mobley style
4. Reedy Alto - Phil Woods/Bud Shank style
5. Smoothed Alto - Art Pepper/Paul Desmond style

Generally, the two Tenors provide the chord colors, so their styles must be completely distinct (in Basie tradition) so that they can be heard separately.  It's quite Ok for these two instruments to "battle" with each other.

The Alto Saxophones are designed, not to battle with each other, but to compete with the lead Trumpet.  If the Lead Trumpet is "mellow," the "Reedy Alto" (wooden) sound will perform the feature Sax role.  If the Lead Trumpet is "growly," the "Smoothed Alto" (metallic) will sit on the top.

The instruments are designed to operate roughly over a two-octave range:
-- Baritones are designed to sound as sweet as possible in the concert range of Eb2 to F4.  
-- Tenors are designed to sound as sweet as possible in the concert range C3 to C5; they can go higher when soloing. 
-- Altos occupy the F3 to F5 concert range, but may go higher as the melody or solo demands.

Patches will follow the following versioning convention:
0.5 - The base sound is acceptable.
0.7 - Modulations for interest have been added.
0.9 - Performance considerations have been added.
1.0 - Usable
1.x - Improvements based on my own satisfaction or community feedback added.

I expect that all five patches will be at version 1.0 by the end of August, 2011.

Howard Scarr and Fred Welsh inspire the sound design portion of the project.  Howard creates the best and most interesting synthetic instruments (non-sampled) that I have heard, and Fred's "Emulating An Acoustic Instrument" section from his WELSH'S SYNTHESIZER COOKBOOK provides the drive to try and retry and re-retry until just-the-right-sound is achieved.

Overall, I hope to arrange about a half-dozen Bop-style jazz tunes in 2011.  Each one will have two renditions: one for Jazz Saxtet, and one for 8x5 Jazz Orchestra.  The 2011 versions will be short (under 3 minutes), and will likely undergo elaboration, filling them with solos, bridges, breaks, etc., in 2012 to produce complete songs.  At the moment, the DSI Mopho is looking promising to provide the entire Sax section.