Hey guys,

Just wanted to get your recommendations as to which saxophone library you think sounds the best and most realistic??

I'm wanting to and some saxophone to a track I'm working on.

Cheers

 

Swam is good, especially if you have breath controller. It may need some tweaking though

 

Totally agree ! this is the best I tried so far !

 

Agree. It's not the best 'out of the box', but if you put some effort both in MIDI CC performance/programming + signal processing (depending on the style), you can get some pretty sweet results. I'd say it's more 'alive' than many more 'real' (i.e. sample-based) VSTi out there... for instance, they have a setting that ensures multiple parts playing in unison will never have phasing issues, you just need to check the right boxes. Still, I think the best approach is combining different VSTi.

 

1980 Tenor Sax Spectralius 2.0

 

Swam, being physical modelled and not sample based.

 

Physical modeling will result in a much smaller footprint on the hard disk. It does not mean it is going to be more realistic sounding than a great Kontakt library. You can make SWAM instruments sound great with enough effort, playing, and editing. It's not going to sound better than recorded audio of a real instrument played by a human player.

 

sax lab

 

Thanks for all the replies guys.

I'm guessing SWAM is not on the sister site??

Cant seem to find it.

 

Monster sax is worth a try https://agushardiman.tv/monster-sax...-free-saxophone-vst-with-multi-articulations/
& i still use the old vst linplug saxlab with a bit of tweaking https://www.musicradar.com/reviews/tech/linplug-saxlab-2-173427

 

https://embertone.com/instruments/sensual-saxophone/

Not the perfect definitive Sax,
but what it does.. it does very good!

 

Last edited: Oct 16, 2025

Also best alternative to SWAM, VHorns Sax of course..
https://www.acousticsamples.net/vhornssaxophones

 

Did you look in the Woodwinds? It has a reed.

 

And it is more realistic!

 

It is possibly the most difficult instrument to sample, though not in tone, quality or sampled phrases. Saxophone is one of the most human-like expressive instruments. It will be different expressively and in breathing each time most likely with a real player. The libraries keep getting better all the time. For solo sax, you will never get close to a really good player but in emulation the above recommendations will likely do the job. Sectional, any of the good Big Band libraries or Session Horns in Kontakt give decent saxophone articulations too. These days, sample libraries are the go but for uniqueness on anyone's track, it always pays to get a real player if it is solo.

 

Last edited: Sep 29, 2024

Hi, try this for mac
https://audiostorrent.com/page/2/?s=swam

 

There was a release a year ago. I'm used to false positives, but that was... different.

 

You mean that was not false positives?! i missed the comment section since post is down.

 

The jury is still out on that, but most experienced users here were worried enough to leave the files alone and eventually the files were deleted. This certainly looked to be a bit more than just a false positive. I don't think anyone has ever definitively proven whether the files were infected though.

 

Here's a SWAM solo... yeah, sax is a bitch