Karoryfer Samples Releases Weresax Saxophone SFZ Library

Karoryfer Samples has released Weresax, an interesting free alto saxophone sample library for Plogue sforzando and all SFZ compatible virtual instruments.

The library contains 256 samples in total (24-bit WAV format) with two velocity layers and two round robins per sampled note. The notes have been sampled chromatically across the standard saxophone range (32 sampled notes ranging from D♭2 to A♭4). The samples have been looped for infinite sustain.

Played as a regular saxophone, the library sounds great. It’s possible to get a natural sounding performance without too much effort, partly thanks to the excellent custom user interface for Plogue sforzando which provides direct control over the envelope, tremolo, vibrato and other relevant performance parameters. The built-in humanize controls work great for slightly randomizing the pitch and vibrato speed of each voice, leading to a more true to life sound.

Of course, this wouldn’t be a Karoryfer Samples library if it didn’t stand out from the crowd in some way (as if being an awesome free saxophone library with a custom GUI script for sforzando wasn’t enough). This crazy team of coders and sound designers wanted to see if it would be possible to make a sampled saxophone sound like an accordion, since both instruments use vibrating reeds to produce sound. These experimental patches are fun to play and, while not exactly spot-on, they are totally capable of passing as an accordion in a busier mix.

The installation procedure is very simple. Extract the downloaded archive to the desired location on your hard drive and drop the BANK file into sfrozando. The library will be automatically registered and you’ll be able to go through the presets using sfrozando’s built-in patch browser. If you haven’t installed sforzando on your machine yet, you can always load the provided SFZ files into any compatible instrument, although the custom GUI won’t be loaded in that case, of course.

Download

Weresax is available for free download via Karoryfer Samples (189 MB download size, ZIP archive, contains 256 audio samples in 24-bit WAV format, 13 instruments in SFZ format, sforzando preset bank in BANK format).