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SWAM saxophone vs Sensual Sax vs Heavy Brass for saxophone sound on ios
Hi,
I need a saxophone app for playing mostly blues and rock stuff. It looks like Sensual Sax and Heavy Brass are the main two to choose from on ios via a midi keyboard. Does anyone have a preference for the best sound? From what I've read, I'm leaning towards Heavy Brass as it seems to have the ability to add 'growl' to notes as in the Brown Sugar solo, although I'm not certain as the menu looks a bit confusing. But Sensual Sax apparently sounds very realistic. There is probably not much in it between the two, but any thoughts would be welcome!
Cheers
Comments
My suggestion would be to combine and layer both.
Any reason you are steering clear of the SWAM offerings?
Thanks, SWAM looks a bit expensive compared to them, is it worth the extra?
I would say yes if you are willing to learn the app a bit. Others may have different opinion.
Isn’t the consensus around here that you need an MPE or breath controller to get the best out of the SWAM stuff?
Maybe GeoSwam would be an option.
To get the best out of it, yes I think so. But my opinion is that you can achieve better than the other offerings using something like GeoShred or even a midi keyboard with an expression pedal.
If you want to set it and forget it and are happy with the sounds - then go with the other apps.
Thanks for your thoughts so far
Thumbjam.
Seriously.
Best possible app purchase.
Is the thumbjam sax really as good?
On this recent project, I tried various sample-based solutions, including Sensual Sax, and nothing was anywhere close to up to the task except GeoSWAM.
Sounds very cool! I'll check it out, thanks
There is no competition for SWAM Tenor Sax, IMO. I only use it with a keyboard and use a mod wheel for vibrato. If you have a midi controller you can map growl, overblow, etc to knobs, wheels and pedals. If you want an easy horn section I guess Heavy Brass would be good enough. But for soloing, it’s SWAM all the way. GeoSWAM is cheaper, but the parameters and presets are more functional with the SWAM standalone.
Here are two examples of my usage
Thanks, that does sound very convincing! On the description on the App store it says that a breath or foot controller etc is required but it is good to know it can be used just with a keyboard and mod wheel.
Agreed. Desert island app for me. I don’t think the sax is quite as good as sensual sax, but the price per feature ratio is insane. Plus all the sound packs are free.
Sensual sax sounds amazing but is really only good at that one sound. Heavy Brass will give you more variety with both Sax sounds and everything else. That said, the Embertone apps are some of my favorites.
Heavy brass has a bundle I believe for $14.99 you get another brass type app. I don’t have either of these apps but the Swam apps are so great, especially when you cc a few parameters, wow.
They are but a sale which happens a few times a year will drop them to $19.99 each with bundles being even more discounted. That’s if you can wait.
Not the same but there’s lots of great free SoundFonts out there for SoundFonts au, or a few other apps. Many free SFZ to use with Audiolayer too.
I typically rely on 3 different apps to build up a realistic sounding simulation on iOS:
-GeoShred sax
-Sensual Sax
-iFretless Sax
Each one has their strengths and weaknesses. None are perfect.
Another decent option is the Taqsim apps. I like them a lot and they’re free to try. You gotta pay for the higher quality samples though. Korg Module also has a decent IAP for this.
I have a few nice sounds in bs-16i and Thumbjam though. AudioLayer as well.
By GeoShred sax I assume you mean the Geoshred Tenor Sax that is actually a SWAM instrument, which is a $15 IAP in Geoshred.
I'm curious what differences there are between on of these Geoshred-limited SWAM instruments and the SWAM instruments that are more expensive as their own app. For example, if I'm using a hardware controller to feed midi to a Geoshred SWAM sax, what am I missing out on as compared with using SWAM's own application?
Thanks all for your comments, it's been very helpful
@Adamcw89 as far as I know GeoSWAM doesn’t have most of this…
You are correct. I was referring to the SWAM in-app purchase for GeoShred. I have both the SWAM standalone Sax app and the GeoShred SWAM in-app version and for my purposes, I just like the GeoShred version better because I use my iPad Pro screen for my keyboard for almost everything (no external hardware keyboard to keep setup light and portable). I have grown to really dislike the SWAM standalone apps because their implementation of the on-screen keyboard is pretty terrible.
Even without an MPE controller or breath controller, SWAM Tenor sound better than the other options, including the GeoSwam Tenor.imo.
I agree with @espiegel123. I have GeoSWAM sax and I never liked it. About to post a new track with the standalone. It’s a great instrument and I don’t use most of its capabilities.
There’s a quite beautiful and characterful tenor sax for use with DecentSampler at Pianobook:
https://www.pianobook.co.uk/packs/tenor-saxophone/
Because it’s sampled, it only has a two octave range, but it’s quite something, possibly for the same reason.
It actually does have a lot of those features but it looks different and they aren’t easy to find if you don’t know where they are… if you double tap on the picture of the instrument at the top in the audio chain you get the box with several parameters, then if you click on expert you get a lot more options to scroll through and adjust on the swam instruments inside geoshred. I don’t know if every single parameter is there but most of them are…
Can you use an external midi controller to send midi in to control these settings? I've looked around a bit and don't see how; the Midi Control settings for Geoshred in AUM don't seem to be very extensive. Is there some other way?
You set the mappings up in GeoShred.
Sensual Sax is kinda unpredictable and not that easy to control but can work in the right circumstances.
I used it on this quickie:
http://chirb.it/7LAawC
Just to add to what @Poppadocrock and @espiegel123 have mentioned (and this is new to me so thanks to you both), in GeoShred, if you add the value you want to control to the Control Surface (in the example below I have added Growl and Key Noise as Knobs) then you can set them to receive on a particular CC. The slightly odd thing (caught me out) is that you then define the source of the CC (in this case Rozeta LFO) via the Midi Routing in AUM (top right squiggle) rather than the Midi Controls window (top leftish squiggle of The GS window). I assume this is because it is an on the fly mapping as opposed to a predefined mappable parameter.
