Jazz-Sax, all things Jazz and Sax
If you had asked me on Christmas, 2019, how 2020 was going to go, I would be off by 180 degrees. I would have said I was looking forward to shedding with a Yacht rock group, and looking forward to playing weekly gigs starting around March. We had a good fall of 2019, and gathered…
Continued refinement has lead to Pedalboard 5.0. Lets recap a little first… Pedalboard 1.0 attempted to address this by using the Eventide MixingLink. However, I could never get the volumes of the two inputs to be close to the same. Generally, the sax mic was a lot louder than the EWI. Even with the MXR MicroAmp…
Legend Tom Scott has a YouTube channel, and it’s criminally under viewed. It’s a great channel with Tom telling stories like how he was in the Blues Brothers band, or playing a great little rendition of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (where he does a little bit on the new Roland Aerophone AE30). I…
Roland has released another in their line of Aerophone Digital Wind Instruments. You have the Aerophone AE-10, the Aerophone GO, the Aerophone mini, and now the Aerophone Pro (AE-30). Retailing for a whopping $1500, it does have a lot of things going for it. It seems to really embrace the synth part more than it’s…
The Woodwind & Brasswind posted a video of Ben Wendel showing his pedal board. One of my “quarantine” projects has been figuring out a good performance pedal board for if/when it is safe to go out and perform again. Let’s dive a little deeper and figure out what exactly his setup is. First off, it…
Covid-19 lockdown has lead to some experimentation. And some rethinking of what I wanted the pedal board to be able to do. First, when doing gigs, sometimes you get a venue where they insist on doing their own sound. Fine. But then they have a “board” which has 16 inputs. And the keyboard player needs…
If you can forgive the Youtube videos they have up of a guy clearly in need of some serious Jonathan Van Ness intervention, a company called Vindor has a intriguing, reasonably priced wind controller that is actually shipping. I believe they had a version 1 of this but I never heard of it. Anyhow, it…
Bret Pimentel has a great article about using an EWI as “silent” practice tool for saxophone, clarinet, or other woodwinds. I agree with his view point.
Following up from the last post, another company to watch is Berglund Instruments. They currently make an EVI (Electric Valve Instrument) that looks and sounds great. If you follow their instagram account, it seems they are working on a EWI version. And I want one. Seriously. I’ve contacted them.
Emeo Music dropped another video of their forthcoming “digital practice horn for saxophone players”. I’m a little confused as to why it is marketed as this. While it does seem to have a rather cool looking body with fully articulating saxophone keys, it doesn’t have a mouthpiece. In fact, it just seems to be some…
Yes, it’s hard to do the Zoom lesson. However, there is one great program that makes it easier to use two microphones while doing a lesson. Audio Hijack. I have a little complex setup that allows me to use the MacBook’s mic, but when the instrument mic kicks in, Audio Hijack “ducks” the MacBook’s mic…
So, it seems that Gruv Gear, makers of my favorite cart that I bought in 2014 (it’s now a Krane AMG500 cart), are now getting into the saxophone neckstrap business. The last neckstrap I bought, which I use still, is a Just Joe’s strap. I do need another strap or harness for Bari Sax, as…
Saxophonist Yanick Coderre has a nice project mixing saxophone and electronics happening. A lot more interesting than a lot of guys who play with like Aebersold type backgrounds doing the same old tired “standards”.
Microphones are important. They capture our sound. They reinforce our sound in a live setting. But they also feed back and color our sound. In the 60s to early 80s, a lot of guys would drill a hole in the neck of their saxophone to put in an a neck microphone pickup. However, doing this…
Ok, fine, here it is. It’s annoying, but everyone seems to want it. It is played, in the game, by an Alto Sax. Enjoy.