Attempt at Processed Tenor Sax 2024 - 2026 Re-Creation in Reason V2
https://youtu.be/9kCbJsoCOZA
for the Demo of the sound design I am trying to re-create
Sadly, I had a hard disk crash in 2024 and lost about a month worth of creative sound design.
Today, again I am attempting to re-create a plug-in chain that I might have used to process my tenor sax back in 2024. Does anyone out there know how I can do this? I'm pretty sure I used Reason. In this video, I put together what plugin effects I thought I used and came pretty close, but no cigar. Too much unprocessed internal signal coming out and the ping pong is not quite right. I demo the original processed and unprocessed audio outputs and a short video using the processed sax. Maybe somebody with really great ears and Reason/Ableton skills can help out? Somebody like Side Brain https://www.youtube.com/@SideBrain?
Thanks everyone in advance.
Gregg
Please visit our website at https://www.mazelmusicalarts.org
#mazelmusicalarts
Need Help with My 2nd Attempt at Re-creation of a Processed Tenor Sax Made in 2024 Re-Creation '26
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HelenMarsh
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2026 11:37 am
Re: Need Help with My 2nd Attempt at Re-creation of a Processed Tenor Sax Made in 2024 Re-Creation '26
Sorry about the drive crash, that's a rough way to lose a month of work.
On the "too much unprocessed signal" part: that usually isn't the effects being wrong, it's the routing. If you put the effect devices directly in the sax track's insert chain in Reason, the dry signal is only whatever the device's own dry/wet control lets through, so any device with a mix knob parked mid-way (delay, chorus, reverb) will bleed a lot of clean sax. Two things worth trying:
1. Rebuild the chain as a send instead of an insert. Send the sax to an FX channel, push the device mixes to 100% wet there, and then blend with the FX channel fader. That gives you a much finer dry/wet balance than stacking mix knobs, and it's closer to how a heavily processed sax usually gets its distant character.
2. If you want it all in one device, a Combinator with the sax split to two parallel paths (one clean, one fully wet) plus a small line mixer at the end lets you set the exact ratio, and you can automate that ratio across the phrase.
For the ping pong not sitting right: check whether you had a true stereo ping-pong delay or just a mono delay after a widener. A real ping pong needs the feedback path to alternate channels, so if your version bounces once and then collapses to the centre, something downstream is summing to mono. Also check the sync setting, a lot of processed sax textures use an unsynced ms delay rather than a note value and that difference is very audible in the tail.
One low-tech trick that has helped me: import the original 2024 processed bounce next to your new attempt, invert phase on one and null-test. Where the residual is loudest tells you which band or which stage you are off in, so you know whether you are chasing EQ, saturation or time-based stuff. It will not null fully but it points at the right device fast.
If you list the devices in your current chain and their order, I am happy to look at it.
On the "too much unprocessed signal" part: that usually isn't the effects being wrong, it's the routing. If you put the effect devices directly in the sax track's insert chain in Reason, the dry signal is only whatever the device's own dry/wet control lets through, so any device with a mix knob parked mid-way (delay, chorus, reverb) will bleed a lot of clean sax. Two things worth trying:
1. Rebuild the chain as a send instead of an insert. Send the sax to an FX channel, push the device mixes to 100% wet there, and then blend with the FX channel fader. That gives you a much finer dry/wet balance than stacking mix knobs, and it's closer to how a heavily processed sax usually gets its distant character.
2. If you want it all in one device, a Combinator with the sax split to two parallel paths (one clean, one fully wet) plus a small line mixer at the end lets you set the exact ratio, and you can automate that ratio across the phrase.
For the ping pong not sitting right: check whether you had a true stereo ping-pong delay or just a mono delay after a widener. A real ping pong needs the feedback path to alternate channels, so if your version bounces once and then collapses to the centre, something downstream is summing to mono. Also check the sync setting, a lot of processed sax textures use an unsynced ms delay rather than a note value and that difference is very audible in the tail.
One low-tech trick that has helped me: import the original 2024 processed bounce next to your new attempt, invert phase on one and null-test. Where the residual is loudest tells you which band or which stage you are off in, so you know whether you are chasing EQ, saturation or time-based stuff. It will not null fully but it points at the right device fast.
If you list the devices in your current chain and their order, I am happy to look at it.