[linux-audio-dev] LAD meeting - LinuxSoundNight

[Paul Winkler]

On Wed, Feb 26, 2003 at 08:35:58PM +0100, Frank Barknecht wrote:
> So one day, I went to rehearse with them. It was very unformal like "let's
> jam a bit, have some fun." So I put on my saxophone, plugged the mike into
> the distortion, the distortion into the wahwah or I plugged them the other
> way around, don't remember.
> 
> Then I blew my heart out.
> 
> But there was not distrotion, and there was no wahwah. In fact, there
> wasn't even a saxophone, there only was feedback, uncontrollable feedback.

Guitar effects on a microphone is very hard to manage without uncontrollable
feedback.  But I saw it done - on a saxophone yet! - by a trio called 
Spongehead (guitar/bass, sax, and drums). The sax player used wah, echo,
and an octave divider (which on a tenor or bari gave him some very 
nice deep notes, allowing the sax to function as the bass player on 
some songs!). I don't remember if he ever used distortion.
He played through a big guitar amp, i think.

Basically you want to:
1) use a very directional mic that mounts on the sax itself -
there are some made for this purpose.  I don't know what kind of
pickup the Spongehead guy used, but it seemed to have a cable
coming from near the mouthpiece???

2) use as little distortion as possible to get the effect you want.
considering how "fuzzy" a saxophone can already sound, i'm not
sure there's much point in using a fuzz on it!
But it would be fun to try other effects like chorus, phase, 
flange, tremolo ...

3) don't stand right in front of your amp :)
    
-- 

Paul Winkler
http://www.slinkp.com