Hey folks. I really would like to get a decent sax sample library. I have no idea what to get and was hoping that I could get some decent recommendations especially since maybe I could get it cheaper today for Black Friday.
I have the full version of Kontakt 5 so stuff that needs that is definitely an option for me. Alto and tenor sax are most important. If it could also play like Cannonball Adderley and Paul Desmond that would be an added bonus :-)

All help greatly appreciated.

The best Saxophones in my collection of libraries are in Yellowtools Independence Pro. They are available separately as Candy. They sound very nice, have key switching for articulations etc.
There may be other more specalist libraries that give better results Liquid Saxophone from Ueberschall comes to mind.

Check out samplemodeling's saxes... http://www.samplemodeling.com/en/index.php They're sample-based, and use a special harmonic alignment technique to make transitions between sample articulations seamless. The trumpet and trombone are excellent as well. Also, Chris Hein Horns vol. 1 (actually it's volume "1.5") has solo instruments that are very good. Actually, all 4 volumes are good, if you have the doughnuts. You can actually get alto and tenor as individual instruments via soundsondemand: http://www.soundsondemand..._service_chris_hein/en Actually he recently released a special "CHH Compact" version of his horns... Could be a good deal for $200.

Checked out both suggestions. The CHH packages seem pretty good from the demos I listened to. Pretty much what I want. I couldn't find out what the sample bit depths were for these packages. They also sell add on packs if you buy one where you don't have to have the Kontakt full player included with the package. I am wondering if I could buy them ALL that way since I have Kontakt 5 and have no need for an embedded Kontakt 2 player. There was a special on the Soprano sax package for about $37 which requires you to have an existing Kontakt player license.
 
The Yellowtools site initially came up in German lol. Had a college flashback there but fortunately they have the english translation version.
 
Thanks for the suggestions. I am definitely going to need to do a bit more research.

samplemodeling's offerings are top notch.  If you want realism and are willing to learn the system there is none better.

yorolpal


samplemodeling's offerings are top notch.  If you want realism and are willing to learn the system there is none better.

The concepts sound interesting to me but my concern (which may be completely misplaced and naive) is that unless I really master the system they have developed my emulated sax will sound a lot more artificial than one made up entirely of samples. Any experiences and comparisons would be really useful to me for sure.
 
Up to this point I have used my Kurzweil 2600 sax sounds which for a time were decent enough for me but drive me nuts now because they are just way to "breathy." I am quite sure anything suggested so far in the responses would be an enormous step up.

That is true what you say... you need to master the samplemodelling instrument, like any "real" instrument. Same is true for any sample/hybrid/modelled instrument of any complexity -- horns, woodwinds, guitars, basses... you need to know how to play the real thing before you can play the fake thing, then on top of that you need to apply what you know about the real thing to the complex control system of the fake thing. Gak! 

Grab the soprano for $37 or whatever if you have kontakt full. It's very playable. In fact, base your decision to go with CHH based on your thoughts of the soprano, as the control system (keyswitches, realtime scripting, etc.) for alto and tenor will be very similar.

As far as the individual CHH instruments via soundsondemand, or directly from the CHH site... the deal is for any one of the 4 volumes your first instrument in that volume costs X, then each subsequent instrument in that volume is discounted significantly (30%? can't remember). However, if you think you might need more than alto and tenor solo instruments, it would be more cost effective to just get the whole volume 1 either via download or on disk.  


As far as bit depth, I believe all the CHH content is 24-bit, at either 44.1 or 48, can't remember. Not sure about the CHH Compact product... my guess is 24-bit as well. In any event, a properly dithered 16-bit sample is every bit as good as a 24-bit sample, except in very special conditions.

Also, BTW, the samplemodeling instruments are all samples... it's just that the system for connecting the samples is necessarily more complex than a traditional keyswitch-based system. 

keith


That is true what you say... you need to master the samplemodelling instrument, like any "real" instrument. Same is true for any sample/hybrid/modelled instrument of any complexity -- horns, woodwinds, guitars, basses... you need to know how to play the real thing before you can play the fake thing, then on top of that you need to apply what you know about the real thing to the complex control system of the fake thing. Gak! 

Grab the soprano for $37 or whatever if you have kontakt full. It's very playable. In fact, base your decision to go with CHH based on your thoughts of the soprano, as the control system (keyswitches, realtime scripting, etc.) for alto and tenor will be very similar.

As far as the individual CHH instruments via soundsondemand, or directly from the CHH site... the deal is for any one of the 4 volumes your first instrument in that volume costs X, then each subsequent instrument in that volume is discounted significantly (30%? can't remember). However, if you think you might need more than alto and tenor solo instruments, it would be more cost effective to just get the whole volume 1 either via download or on disk.  


As far as bit depth, I believe all the CHH content is 24-bit, at either 44.1 or 48, can't remember. Not sure about the CHH Compact product... my guess is 24-bit as well. In any event, a properly dithered 16-bit sample is every bit as good as a 24-bit sample, except in very special conditions.

Thanks that was helpful. I definitely was thinking of getting the soprano sax even though I truthfully don't have it on my need to have list cause it was so inexpensive and, like you said, it gives me a cheap way to test drive the software.
 
As far as knowing how to play the real thing...yea that is not going to happen as well as a real player. I can play keyboards but have no working knowledge of how to really play a sax. I do understand what you are saying though in that it would be very helpful to be fluent in the mechanics of playing the sax.

I purchased and downloaded the Chris Hein Horns Soprano Sax library that requires the full version of Kontakt from soundsondemand.com. I already have Kontakt 5 so that was not a problem. All I can say is wow! What a fun and playable piece of software. Definitely worth the price of $33.97 after conversion from euros. Popped on some Oscar Peterson Trio music and pretended I was sitting in on sax (badly).
 
I sent an email asking if I can purchase the add on versions of the alto and tenor sax packages since I don't need the embedded Kontakt player. Hopefully yes which will save some money.