bigcat Saxophone Collection

I've always enjoyed the sound of the saxophone, so I've started creating some sax instruments from public domain and creative commons samples. There is a recently sampled Alto Sax here.

The showpiece of this collection are the Iowa Saxophones sampled by University of Iowa Electronic Music Studios. These Saxophones are fully sampled in 3 velocity layers with 375 samples all told.

When We All Get to Heaven - Iowa Sax Demo

When the Saints Go Marching In - Iowa Sax Demo 

All the Kontakt 5 Iowa Saxophones in one zip file.
Kontakt 5 - Iowa Alto Sax, Iowa Soprano Sax, Iowa Sax Duet, Iowa Solo Sax
K5 No Interface - Iowa Alto Sax, Iowa Soprano Sax, Iowa Sax Duet, Iowa Solo Sax
K5 Non-Monolith - Iowa Alto Sax, Iowa Soprano Sax, Iowa Sax Duet, Iowa Solo Sax
C1 is Non-vibrato mode, C#1 is Vibrato, except the Soprano Sax which is C2 and C#2
Thanks to SWTrex and Evil Dragon for helping me figure out that the monolith versions create problems loading into some configurations of Kontakt 5. So I've added non-monolith versions for anyone who is having trouble getting the monoliths to load.

Maize VSTis
Iowa Alto Sax                 Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU
Iowa Soprano Sax           Win 64  Win 32      Mac VST   Mac AU
SampleTank 2.5
Iowa Alto Sax - Non-vibrato, Iowa Alto Sax - Vibrato
Iowa Soprano Sax - Non-vibrato, Iowa Soprano Sax - Vibrato

The Duet is basically the Alto and Soprano playing together. The Solo is the two spliced together for a wider range.
Thanks to Lawrence Fritts, Director of the Electronic Music Studios, and the University of Iowa these are public domain samples. These instruments are public domain. Do anything you like with them.


Clruwe at Freesound.org has made a significant number of saxophone samples available. These are more free form and jazzy and better suited to expressive playing than harmony.
Kontakt 5
Club Alto Sax - Every third note is sampled in 5 velocity layers.
Club Jazz Alto Sax - Every third note is sampled in 5 velocity layers.
Club Tenor Sax - Very Lightly Sampled, but with many variations.
Club Baritone Sax - Very Lightly Sampled with some variations.
K5 No Interface - Club Alto Sax, Club Jazz Alto Sax, Club Tenor Sax, Club Baritone Sax
K5 Non-Monolith - Club Alto Sax, Club Jazz Alto Sax, Club Tenor Sax, Club Baritone Sax

These samples are covered by Creative Commons 3.0. You can use them commercially. Please credit Clruwe.


An ecelctic group of samples.
Kontakt 5 -  MSLP Sax - Fully Sampled with 1 velocity layers and many variations.
K5 No Interface - MSLP Sax
K5 Non-Monolith - MSLP Sax

Based on samples from the MSLP project created by Erick Kvist, please credit him. These samples are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution non-commercial 3.0. However you can use it for commercial releases. From the readme, "THE SAMPLES ARE FREE TO USE FOR ANY CREATIVE MUSICAL PURPOSES. YOU CAN SELL YOUR MUSIC MADE FROM THE SAMPLES."
Performed by Johan Eklund and recorded by Jonas Nilsson.

There are some other nice free Saxophone Instruments floating on the web.
DSK SaxophoneZ
DVS Saxophone

If you have the urge to support public domain instruments. You can donate to the University of Iowa Electronic Music Studio. They are the main source of public domain samples, including the Steinway from my piano collection.