Electronic Saxophone

Hi,
You are being very optimistic in expecting the tone function to reproduce the sound of a saxophone or any instrument at all.

I would suggest that you adjust your expectations/project goals to 'have a saxophone style interface to an interesting sounding electronic instrument'.

If you really want to try reproducing a saxophone sound, you have a lot of reading ahead of you, there is a good series fo about 50 articles buried somewhere on this site - http://www.soundonsound.com/

If you want to go for the more realistic option of saxophone style interface to interesting electronic instrument, I suggest you look up the Auduino project, its not mine but I have collected some interesting examples here -

It could really benefit from a more instrument like user interface so could be the perfect marriage of two projects
Duane B

To get the sound of a real instrument you need to get right:-

  1. the frequency
  2. the mix of harmonics
  3. the changing mix of harmonics over time.
  4. the change in all the above when the blow velocity changes.

There are two options, you can either play back a sample sound from a wave shield, one for each note. Or you can synthesise the waveform. The UNO is not fast enough to do this but it is possible to do this with a Due. There is a good book about modelling synths by Perry Cook, he has a web site with code on it to help you to do this. However it is not a thing for beginners, it is rather advanced.

Thank you guys for your suggestions! I will try to look on this and plan with my groupmates! Your advices give a lot of insight and we will start studying on them :slight_smile:

Links to help you:-
The book:-

The code:-
https://ccrma.stanford.edu/software/stk/

Hi I made a microphone circuit and I plan to make it detect only the wind blowing for my Saxophone project. So far I am having problems on how to do this because when I blow wind to the microphone it gathers data and when I also talk it also gathers data. How can I let my circuit only gather data wind blowing from the microphone?

That is nearly impossible to do without some kind of filter or isolation container.
How big is the microphone, is it able to go inside the Saxophone?

xxryan1234:
I understand that, but do you have any suggestions sir so that my project can be near to the sound of the actual saxophone?

Does it sound like MIDI tones?

Grumpy_Mike:
Links to help you:-
The book:-
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Real-Sound-Synthesis-Interactive-Applications/dp/1568811683/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1355222781&sr=8-9

The code:-
The Synthesis ToolKit in C++ (STK)

okay sir will look into this right away when I get home thank you, will update you guys if the project is a success :slight_smile:

S_Flex:

xxryan1234:
I understand that, but do you have any suggestions sir so that my project can be near to the sound of the actual saxophone?

Does it sound like MIDI tones?

Yes sir

HazardsMind:
That is nearly impossible to do without some kind of filter or isolation container.
How big is the microphone, is it able to go inside the Saxophone?

the microphone is inside the artificial saxophone that we made sir, I used a EM-80PX7 mic MIC Condenser. Is there any way I can stop getting data from the sound and only get data through wind from the microphone?

Can you place another microphone upstream in the sax, if you can it may be possible to use the upstream mic as a switch that turns on the sampling if it get a signal before the ed. you placed. This is not foolproof but may be any easy method that work well enough.

Why choose a microphone?
Surely you need something more like an anemometer?

A microphone is the wrong sensor to use. You want to use a pressure sensor. You want to blow into a Leakey chamber, then the pressure will represent how hard you blow.

Did not think about using an anemometer or a pressure sensor, I thought about the microphone because it was the first thing that came into my mind. Thank you for the suggestions Sir Grumpy_Mike and Sir AWOL. Thank you also wwbrown You guys have been a lot of help, I'll look into using your suggestions and try them out when we work tomorrow! :slight_smile:

Will try looking on pressure sensors and anemometer circuits, sorry not that familiar with these two. :slight_smile:

xxryan1234:
Yes sir

that's about the best you can get when using a single frequency for one tone.
For a more stereo quality sound what some people are doing is pre-recording the sounds then using a stereo IC and the arduino to mix it.

Latest on our Sax:

xxryan1234:
Hi I made a microphone circuit and I plan to make it detect only the wind blowing for my Saxophone project. So far I am having problems on how to do this because when I blow wind to the microphone it gathers data and when I also talk it also gathers data. How can I let my circuit only gather data wind blowing from the microphone?

You could add a second microphone with a windscreen. Subtract signal that the windscreen'd microphone receives. Just an idea.

Here's an example of a blow pressure sensor: http://www.instructables.com/id/Arduino-Controlled-SIP-PUFF-Switch/

Another thing to add would be a force sensitive resistor where the reed would be. Allow the user to apply pressure with their bottom lip to "bend the tone higher" (damn I played sax for 10 years and don't know the proper term).

Chagrin:

xxryan1234:
Hi I made a microphone circuit and I plan to make it detect only the wind blowing for my Saxophone project. So far I am having problems on how to do this because when I blow wind to the microphone it gathers data and when I also talk it also gathers data. How can I let my circuit only gather data wind blowing from the microphone?

You could add a second microphone with a windscreen. Subtract signal that the windscreen'd microphone receives. Just an idea.

Here's an example of a blow pressure sensor: http://www.instructables.com/id/Arduino-Controlled-SIP-PUFF-Switch/

Another thing to add would be a force sensitive resistor where the reed would be. Allow the user to apply pressure with their bottom lip to "bend the tone higher" (damn I played sax for 10 years and don't know the proper term).

It's all good man! We just had finished our Project and it's working out great for us. I just posted the video to let you guys know. and I would like to thank all the people from Arduino.cc for helping me! Thank you for advice though. :slight_smile:
We used a blow pressure sensure by the way.
I would like to especially thank Grumpy Mike for this! :slight_smile: