1.2 What is wind-l?
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The basic sensor inputs on the instrument are a breath pressure sensor, a pitch bend (bite) sensor, and the keys.
When you blow into the instrument, at a certain pressure threshold a Note On is sent. The velocity of the Note On is based on how fast you attack the note. The instrument plays legato, in that if you key a different note while maintaining breath pressure, the controller sends a Note On for the new note before sending the Note Off of the first note.
While a note is on, the breath pressure sensor produces a stream of continuous controller messages. This is typically used to control overall volume and brightness.
There's a set of octave switches on the underside of the instruments, controlled by the left thumb. The octave ranges of the fingerings overlap, so it's possible to thumb the octave shifts at convenient points.
The mouthpieces look much like sax or clarinet mouthpieces. There's a reed, which doesn't vibrate, but if you bite into it you can vary the pitch. This is useful for bends and for vibrato. The WX7 also has a pitch bend wheel controllable by the right thumb.
The WX7 is no longer made, but can be found second hand. The WX11 is still in production.
The WX7 is the most flexible of the Yamaha instruments. It includes a set of pots to adjust the feel of the instrument, and a set of dip switches for various configurations. These make it highly customizable, but can be difficult to set up.
The WX7 has the following features:
The WX7 always transmits Breath Controller (cc#2) or Channel Pressure (a.k.a Aftertouch) messages in response to how hard you blow. This is an exclusive OR; you select one or the other with the DIP switch closest to the mouthpiece. In addition i to BC or Aftertouch, the WX7 can also transmit MIDI Volume (cc#7) messages. You turn them OFF or ON via the second DIP switch from the top. If you send MIDI Volume messages, they appear always to be exact copies of the BC (or Aftertouch) messages; in other words, they are technically redundant. The WX7 seems to do the following:
P While technically redundant, the MIDI Volume (cc#7) messages may be useful in practice. Suppose that you have been playing Yamaha FM synths that are programmed to modulate volume and timbre with BC messages. Then you add a Roland synth to your setup, and it CAN'T respond to BC messages. Solution: program the Roland synth to respond to MIDI Volume messages (almost any synth can be programmed to make cc#7 modulate volume), turn on MIDI Volume messages from the WX7, and you're back in business.
The WX7 was not sold with a dedicated synth, so there was obviously some pressure to make it compatible with various external synths, many of which, at the time, had severe restrictions on what kinds of MIDI messages they could be programmed to respond to.
Because breath messages make up the vast majority of MIDI messages transmitted by the WX7, turning on MIDI Volume messages almost doubles the number of messages going down the line. (The fact that this situation does not seem to lead to MIDI clog suggests that when transmitting ONLY BC (or Aftertouch) messages, the WX7 could sample breath pressure at least twice as fast, which might make fast crescendos and decrescendos a bit smoother.)
The WX7 requires a BT7 battery pack which both powers the unit and provides a MIDI out.
2.3 What is the WX11?
The WX11, which was usually sold with the WT11 sound module, is less
flexible than the WX7, but is said to be easier to play without glitches.
It transmits ONLY cc#2 in response to how hard you blow, with no possibility of Aftertouch or MIDI Volume messages. This is often a problem, but it can fairly easily be overcome by feeding the output of the WX11 through a MIDI mapper. Possibilities include the WindTamer (a rackmount unit designed especially for WX11 users that maps cc#2 to cc#7 AND provides some other nice features, see below), Anatek Pocket Mapper, a trivial MAX program running on a Macintosh, etc.
A companion piece to the WX11 is a synth module, the WT11. (See next question.) If you don't use the WT11 you'll need the separate BT7 battery pack.
Specifications:
2.4 What is the WT11?
This is a 4-op FM synth (a la TX-81Z or DX-11) with a few digital effects,
and programs specifically designed for wind control.
Specifications:
2.6 What is the Wind Tamer?
[While not strictly a Yamaha product, its specific use with the WX7/WX11
justifies its inclusion here.]
The WindTamer is a 1 unit rack mount box, black, maybe six inches deep. The front panel has a three digit, one-inch red LED display, a jack for the supplied WX cable, and a toggle switch used to select PLAY or SETUP. The back panel has a MIDI out port, a jack for the supplied wall-wart power supply, and a fuse holder. There is no On/Off switch.
Features:
The WindTamer costs $225.
"For those of you who have expressed interest in the Wind Tamer, here is the story. My partner and I (who both have full time jobs) borrowed a very small amount of money to begin building the Wind Tamer. Unfortunately, we did not now how expensive the FCC testing was going to be and that blew away any profits we had planned to use to keep building Wind Tamers and our other products that we have designs for. If you use a Yamaha WX7 or WX11, The Wind Tamer lets you access virtually any synth by remapping controller #2 to #7, eliminates the battery power pack and increases the program changes from 5 to 125. If anyone is interested, please contact me at DOASMITH@INDYVAX.IUPUI.EDU"
"First of all, don't try to twist it.The WX7 mouthpiece consists of the external part you see, including the attached reed, and an rounded oblong "stem" about 1.5 centimeters (about 0.6 inches) long that fits inside the body of the instrument.
The WX7 mouthpiece is quite snugly fitted, with two rubber-band like seals fitted like piston rings around the oblong stem. I assume the WX11 mouthpiece is the same.
I remove the mouthpiece occasionally for inspection and cleaning. Some players find that gunk can get in there, clogging the openings to the breath-pressure sensor and to the breath-exhaust tube that leads down to the bottom of the instrument. Best prevention: wash your mouth out with water before you play, as with any wind instrument.
Before removal, be aware that inside the mouthpiece is a thin metal lever, one end of which normally rides on the reed. You can see this end through the mouthpiece tip opening. The lever extends back through a rubber shield to the actual lip-pressure sensor. This metal lever (and perhaps the sensor itself) are all too easily damaged when the mouthpiece is off.
I remove the mouthpiece by seizing the body of the instrument firmly with one hand, the mouthpiece with the other, and pulling them straight apart. Slow and firm. Wiggle the mouthpiece from side to side just *slightly* if it's stuck. Do not twist - the inserted stem is oval rather than round. Keep a firm grasp on the mouthpiece and especially on the body so that you don't drop anything when they come apart.
Because the lip-pressure lever/sensor is so vulnerable when naked, be sure to replace the mouthpiece (slowly and firmly) as soon as possible. A thin coating of petroleum jelly on the rubber-band rings will help make the next removal a bit smoother."
The best way to test the WX7 is (somewhat counterintuitively) away from a synthesizer. Until you have good wind-sensitive patches to work with, you'll have great difficulty telling if a problem should be traced to the controller or the synth or the patch programming itself.
What you want to do, if at all possible, is to see if the WX7 is transmitting MIDI messages correctly. This can be done with programs like midiscope or a simple MAX program. It is complicated by all the DIP switches and trim pots.
To start: Hold the WX7 with the back toward you and the mouthpiece pointing up. Open the rubber switch cover and move all the DIP switches to your left. In this position, the WX7 should transmit Breath Control messages (cc#2) when you blow. Blow and check midiscope (or whatever) to make sure.
Then move the top DIP switch to the right. It should stop sending cc#2 and start sending Channel Aftertouch messages.
Move the 2nd DIP switch from the top to the right, and the WX7 should start sending cc#7 (MIDI Volume) messages in addition to the cc#2 or Aftertouch messages selected by the top switch.
Also check to see that both the lip sensor and the thumb wheel are transmitting Pitch Bend messages. If not, the trim pots could be wildly misadjusted, or the lip-pressure sensor may be broken or bent. This happens a lot when people take off the mouthpiece.
If you have trouble getting a response, the apertures inside the mouthpiece may be clogged. (See previous question.)
The best plan, if you can possibly arrange it, is to find another successful WX7 player to do the testing. The WX7 is a great little controller, but all the setup options can make it a nightmare for a beginner.
These have touch sensitive keys which take some getting used to, since just touching a key produces a note. ie. you can't rest your fingers on the keys like on a real woodwind instrument, although to counter this you can buy an EWI-FR finger rest.
The Akai wind controller is pretty versatile. When using an external sound module, you can program up to 4 note chords. Each note of the chromatic scale can be set to a (1), 2, 3, or 4 note chord. (It has nothing to do with which fingering you use to play the note.) When setting up your chords, you just pick which notes will actually sound when you play a particular fingering on the controller. It takes some advance planning for a piece, but can be well worth it.
Also, you can get control over dynamics on a sound module by using a line in jack on the Akai. This loops the module back through the Akai before going to the mixer. When doing this you can mix the ratio of volume between the Akai and your sound module. This is done on the Akai.
A dual foot pedal with a stereo plug allows you to change patches up and down while playing.
The following models have been made:
The 3000m module contains knobs to adjust breath sensitivity and gain, portamento time, pitch bend sensitivity and gain, vibrato and volume, with a bar-graph mode for the LCD display that aids in setup. There is memory for 100 patches, of which the last 50 are user-programmable. The first 30 factory patches are for use with the EWI controller, while the next 20 are set up for keyboards (with the last 10 being bass patches). The synthesis engine is a 4-oscillator 2-voice unit-- there are 4 VCOs, with 2 VCOs feeding each of two resonant (but non-formant) filters and amplifiers. (This is apparently different from both the earlier EWV2000 and the later 3020m, which are 2-oscillator 2-voice.) Each VCO is fed by a triangle, sawtooth, or square wave (the square wave may be pulse-width-modulated), or by the external analog input, which allows you to control an external synth with the EWI's filters and amplifiers. For use with external MIDI keyboards, the module has envelope generators (breath control may be turned off). All 12 chromatic transpositions are supported.
The module emits MIDI Note On, Note Off (actually Note On/zero velocity), pitch bend, portamento (though the implementation chart doesn't acknowledge this), and one of {breath controller, mod wheel, channel aftertouch, volume, or off}. Note-on velocity is fixed at a user-selectable value (64-127). There is memory for 16 user-defined chords of up to four notes, a different one of which may be assigned to each of the twelve chromatic pitches (the chords work with an external MIDI module, not with the analog unit). The 3000m also has a MIDI in, unlike the EWV2000, and can be driven by an external keyboard or sequencer.
Folk wisdom asserts that the EWIs in general are a bit harder to master than the Yamaha controllers, but when driving their dedicated analog modules are capable of a greater degree of expressiveness than is a MIDI-only unit. In my own experience, the difference is real, but subtle, at least with well-programmed MIDI wind patches.
Or, from Akai promotional material,
An Expressive Encore
Put the Human Feeling and Emotion Back Into Your Music
There have been many advances in electronic musical instruments since the first days of MIDI yet musical expression was limited to what could be played on a keyboard. Now, Akai is widening the expressive horizons with the introduction of the new EWI3000 Wind Controller and the EWI3000m Sound Module. The EWI3000 will give you the freedom of expression and "human feel" that musicians have been searching for all these years. The powerful expressive capabilities of the EWI3000 and the rich sonorous sound of the EWI3000m will let you soar to new levels of musical expression and creativity.The Akai EWI3000 MIDI Wind Controller and the EWI3000m sound module set is a completely new type of electronic instrument that even unexperienced wind players can quickly and easily master. Like the saxophone, the EWI3000 uses fingering similar to a recorder which makes it very easy to learn and play. And due to the use of a special easy to blow breath sensor, beginners who might have a difficult time with acoustic instruments such as the saxophone can quickly and easily learn to control sounds using the Akai EWI3000.
The EWI3000 and the EWI3000m sound module are designed as a complete set that is capable of extremely sensitive musical expression. The EWI3000m contains an exquisite selection of professionally programmed electronic wind programs so you can start playing beautifully expressive sounds right from the beginning. There is no need to use an external synthesizer or sampler.
The operation of these instruments is designed to be intuitive and easy to understand so you can spend your time playing, not figuring it out. And because the EWI3000 (in conjunction with the EWI3000m) provides full MIDI implementation, you can also use it as a master MIDI controller that provides the utmost in human expressive capabilities whether you are playing a lead solo or a lyrical symphonic line. With the EWI3000, you will be able to play lines and phrases that would be impossible on a keyboard controller, And you can start playing immediately.
A New Expressive MIDI Controller and a Colorful Sound Module
The EWI3000 and EWI3000m are the successors to the EWI1000 Wind Controller and the EWV2000 Sound Module. Both of these highly acclaimed instruments have been used by top performers throughout the world and have developed a reputation as being the most expressive and warm sounding electronic instruments ever designed. We have now taken this proven concept and refined it even further. By both enhancing and enriching the sonic capabilities and providing more functional capabilities, we have created a new cost-effective MIDI wind controller and sound module unlike any other ever designed. The EWI3000 will let you have expressive control not possible with any other type of MIDI controller. And with its incredibly fast and sensitive response, you can control other MIDI sound Modules, synthesizers, and samplers as well as the EWI3000m. This instrument is a powerful new expressive tool for both wind players and other musicians who are seeking creative new MIDI tools.
The Power of MIDI Control with Human Expression
The EWI3000 gives you unsurpassed performance control and the ability to .shape any musical line with tremendous feeling and expression. The EWI3000 has a special breath sensor, lip sensor, a touch sensor for pitch shifting, volume controlled pulse width, vibrato, and glide. You can play synthesizer sounds and control external MIDI modules with the expressive characteristics of a brass instrument. The EWI3000 gives you the ability to perform tonguing just as on a real brass instrument. In addition to being able to play the most incredibly expressive monophonic lines, you can also play chords too. Using any MIDI polyphonic sound module, it is possible to program and play chords with up to four voices.Rich Analog Synthesizer Sounds with Dual Voices
The EWI3000m analog sound module uses four VCOs to create its incredibly full warm sound. The sound module contains 4VCOs, 2VCFs, 2VCAs, and 4EGs. You can also mix two different sounds together giving you the freedom to create rich powerful sounding programs. The back-lit 16 character LCD will guide you easily through the editing operations and provides you with a monitor system to check the control sensors. The EWI3000m with its convenient desktop design, is very small and light so it can be easily carried with you wherever .you go. And you are not limited to just woodwind and brass sounds either. The low frequency response of the EWI3000m in particular is incredible - ideal for the rich vibrance necessary for creating effective bass programs. And you'll find that the analog sounds of the EWI3000m are ideal for numerous other types of sounds as well. It is even possible to use two EWI30OOm's together for the ultimate rich analog sound or as a powerful and unique creative performance tool.Large Memory Storage for Easy Program Management
There are a total of 100 memory locations available for storing your sound programs. The storage locations are arranged in two banks of 50 memories including 50 extremely musical programs created by a professional artist. These 50 memory locations can also be rewritten for storing your own custom programs. For performing, sounds can be easily arranged and organized in the order you require them to produce easy access on stage and during recording work. Programs may also be selected using a footswitch allowing you to keep both of your hands free for performing.Incredible Expressive Control Never Possible Before
The EWI3000m features a MIDI IN connector allowing you to control it from an external MIDI controller or sequencer for Maximum flexibility. This lets you use the rich and warm sounds of the EWI3000m with any MIDI controller you are using so your favorite sounds will always be accessible. The EWI3000m also features an EXT IN connector that lets you control the sound from an external MIDI sampler or synthesizer using the EWI3000's expressive breath controller. This powerful capability will let you have expressive control like you've never experienced before. The EWI3000 simply provides you with superior control. And by mixing and editing sampled sounds along with the EWI3000m analog sounds, you can explore entire new sonic territory with full human expressive control - perfect for creating an emotional impact on your audience. Try out the EWI3000 yourself and see what the excitement and fanfares are all about."
WIND SYNTHESIZERS WITH PRECISE CONTROL, LIVELY SOUNDS AND NATURAL EXPRESSIONS
Even if you've never played a woodwind instrument before, you'll enjoy Akai EWI wind synthesizers.The EWI3020 is a wind controller that lets you play naturally and with emotions. The EWI3020m is an analogue synthesizer module featuring warm, expressive sound. And the EWI3030m is a digital synthesizer module providing high-quality, realistic sound from PCM modules. No keyboard instrument can match the ease and flexibility of our wind synthesizers.
The Wind Controller: Recreating the playing style of woodwind instruments
The EWI3020 responds precisely to the feeling of the player through breath, lip and touch sensors. Controls include pitch, volume, pulsewidth, vibrato and glide that infuse life into sound modules. Unlike keyboard-type controllers, the wind controller can provide a subtle, natural wind sound. Together with the EWI3020m or EWI3030m sound module, it puts at your command a versatile instrument with colourful sound and flexible styles.The Analogue Sound Module: Flexible expression and rich sound
The EWI3020m is an analogue synthesizer featuring 2 VCOS, 1 VCF, 1 VCA and 2 EGs. It boasts the ability to realistically express a wide range of sounds, from subtle to powerful. The modulation function lets you combine any of seven modulation sources with any of 10 destinations, to add up to tremendous flexibility, There are also string and bassoon filters that help create natural string and woodwind sounds. What's more, the synthesizer comes with 50 preset banks with select sounds that you can use immediately just by connecting it with the EWI 3020 controller.The Digital Sound Module: PCM high sound quality
The EWI3030m is a digital synthesizer equipped with two PCM sound modules. Seventy-five PCM waves, digitally sampled from live sound sources, are at its unit's heart- sounds that you can modify using filters, LFOs, ENVs, breath controllers and vibrato, to synthesize unlimited variations. You have sounds that you'd normally have to obtain from external sound modules through MIDI. Moreover, 128 selected sounds are preset for instant use with the EWI3020 controller. You can add a final touch using reverb- 24 types in all.Extra ease of use, especially on stage
The EWI3020m and EWI3030m let you assign any preset or user-created sound to up to 100 or 99 programmes, respectively. You can arrange the necessary sounds in order of play, which adds to extra ease of use during live performance or recordings. Of course, there's a foot switch for program up/down, delay settings for key and a breath-sensitive velocity output (1-127).Controlling EWI modules and external MIDI equipment
With the INSTRUMENT OUT/IN jacks and optional EWI-B15, you can use a number of EWI3030m, EWI3020m, and EWI3000m units, together or singly, depending on the song. Moreover, the MIDI OUT lets you control an external MIDI module. Re-route the external module's audio outputs to the EXT IN on the EWI3020m or EWI3030m, and then you can control sound with breath on the EWI 3020. You can import sounds from an external synthesizer or sampler for processing or mixing. When you use external MIDI sound modules through MIDI, you can play chords of up to four notes. You can also control the EWI3020m and EWI3030m as an external sound module from the keyboard through MIDI IN.
The new EVI body is made of plastic, is lighter, easier to manufacture, and is about 3" wide (more room for expansion. He said if you close your eyes it feels the same in your hands as the old EVI.
akai@pan.com
akai@delphi.com
Tel: 0181 897-6388
Fax: 0181 759-8268
In addition to standard features you would expect on any wind controller the Synthophone also gives you aftertouch control, modulation control, start/continue/stop for sequencers, 5 part harmony in any given key (3 preset styles and 6 user modifiable), chord variations through lip pressure, 3 styles of pitch bend with 5 levels each, 5 part multi channel mode with proper voice leading, freeze harmonies, optional thumb express assignable for pitch bend/number of voices in a chord/lower-upper midi channel/ bII Substitue Chords/ sustain, portamento, as well as many others. The other nice thing is when you find a setting you like, including program change, midi channel, all of the above, you just save it to the Synthophone.
It also has a very friendly use interface, which means the saxophone players in particular can get immediate results. The instrument can be set to feel and respond so much like a saxophone that you can play it right away. The designer also puts your own custom altissimo fingerings on the instrument so there should be nothing about fingering that will feel odd. After you're comfortable playing it "like a saxophone" the other features will keep you busy for a long time.
The Synthophone has a 'reed', but it is just to get lip pressure, it does not vibrate. The Synthophone 'range' is the normal sax range with altissimo plus one octave up and one octave down for a total of about 5+ octaves. Of course it is easy to move that up or down an octave across the board.
The Synthophone accomplishes these and other commands by using 'non-standard' fingerings. In other words there are certain key combinations which get you into a control area, then allow to alter that parameter. These fingerings are largely used in setting up a sound, once a sound is set up,(saved using a non-standard fingering) you mostly will move from one sound to another via one non-standard fingering. So there is very little to remember in a performance situation. The harmonies, breath settings, mod wheel settings, lip settings, patch changes, midi channel, etc. are all saved at once to the instrument when you find a sound you like.
The Synthophone is priced at $3450.00. This is the same price it has been since 1987. It is also available in a professional Selmer Paris alto body, but I'm not sure what its price is. (At $3450 it is in a Yamaha student alto sax body.)
Tel: (int.+41) 31 311 28 20
Fax: (int.+41) 31 751 15 48
The original Lyricon was a wind controller which drove a computer that generated overtones. It came with a delux plush lined case, and had a shiny chrome finish and an elongated bottom piece. It used a form of additive synthesis, where you dial in the amount of overtones you want, and you could then blend that with the wind overtoned section. It had a key switch for a fundamental of G, Bb, C, Eb or F and a range switch of low, med or hi. Combined with two octave up keys, you had a functional 6 octave range. It also had glissando, portmento and "timbre attack", which was sort of like chorusing.
The sounds were very expressive and there was quite a bit of control over the actual sound. The down side was that, like early synths, there was no way to "save" a sound. So the first Lyricon players had to know the way the dials should be set for a sound, and hope they approximated those settings. Other problems included it being incapable of controlling any other sound source than its own computer, and adding more of the top overtones could give it a very "buzzy" sound.
Later 2 other Lyricons were introduced. One of them had no sounds, and was known as the Wind Synthesizer Driver. This unit had the ability to control pitch through fingering, pitch bend through lip pressure, and through its wind control outputs the performer would generally control VCA and VCF information. The control was fairly elaborate with choices and settings for each control voltage output.
The third Lyricon had its own built in synth, and was called the Lyricon II. This came with a formed plastic case, and had a brushed aluminium look. The bottom piece was a stubby "plug" that looked quite different from the first Lyricon. The synth module was a 2 oscillator synth with a choice of square or sawtooth waves, VCF and LFO, but no envelope generator, since you controlled this with your wind and embouchure. It had a patch point to connect to external CV/gate synths.
All of the Lyricons used the same saxophone style fingering system, with two octave keys above the left-hand thumb rest. The Wind Synthesizer Driver also had a transposition footswitch feature, where a foot pedal could be used to transpose the entire range up or down one octave. With the Lyricon II you could do this from the control panel.
They all used a bass clarinet mouthpiece, with a sensor on the reed to detect pressure. There was a diaphragm which moved and changed the light output from a LED which was in turn sensed by a photocell to give dynamic control.
There were additionally some models put out just as the mouthpiece unit, and they were used to control keyboard synths, much as a breath control unit works on a Yamaha keyboard currently. This occurred just as the company went out of business. Just before it went out of business in the early 80's, the Selmer band instrument company took over distribution, but was unable to market the instrument successfully.
A company called Innovations Ltd. later developed from Computone Inc.
They are shaped like saxophones, have an internal speaker (at the "bell"), audio output and MIDI output. It is not the most expressive way to play a MIDI module, but it does send velocity with its note on messages, and channel after-touch as you change how hard you blow after sounding a note. Fingering is mostly like a sax but there is an alternate fingering method that you can select which allows many octaves of control.
The Casio is good for fun and basics or as a proof of concept, but one of the Yamaha or Akai wind controllers will be a better choice if it is to be your main controller.
There are also reports of a whole line of Casio DH horns that were not
available outside Japan. There is a DH-500 which apparently looked like
the DH-100 and DH-200 but had a cassette-tape capability for play-along.
There may be a DH-800 as well.
4.4 What are the Sting controllers?
There are two Sting controllers, both of which [I believe] are no longer
in production.
Sting EW1 synthesized, electronic wind instrument fingers basically the same as a saxophone or recorder but can be customized with up to 2000 different fingerings available. Nickel plated instrument appears very much like a clarinet with standard woodwind mouthpiece. Keys - 12 upper, 2 under, E flat and B flat fingerings, transmits a single conductor cable. A pin lock jack for the connector & standard shielded cables can be used. The EW1 includes a synthesis module with Threshold controls for wind and lip, Lip control for vibrato, bend and filter, LFO for vibrato speed, Transpose (E flt, F, D flt and C), Main oscillator with 3 octave range and Sub Oscillator with octave control and detune. There are 64 preset sounds and a MIDI out jack. The back panel includes inputs for foot switch control of Sub Oscillator and CV control of LFO speed, Filter and Bend.
The Sting EW2 MIDI controller uses the same input unit as the EW1 but does not include the synthesis module. The control unit ( a rack mount box) for the EW2 has Wind threshold, Wind Modulation Wheel, Wind Dynamic, Moving Threshold, Moving bend, Moving Modulation Wheel, Key transpose (E flt, F, B flt and C), and Master volume on the front. The rear panel has 2 MIDI out, 2 Velocity In, 2 Master outs, Program change, Sustain switch, Headphone out and Key transpose jacks.
The most prevalent lapse is the lack of a legato, single-trigger, mono mode. On a lot of wind controller voices, you want to be able to play a new note without have the synth envelopes re-trigger. Many of the Roland synths, for example, lack this feature, and you should have suspicions of sample-based instruments in general.
The synth must offer musically useful control of volume and tone
parameters from the Continuous Controller 2 or After-touch. Older and --
alas -- less expensive synths are suspect. You want direct linear control
of the appropriate parameters (e.g. filter cutoff, FM modulator output,
vector mix.)
5.2 Is my synth suitable for using with a wind controller?
The following list is not a complete list of synths that are suitable for
using with wind controllers, but have all been reported as usable on
wind-l
The following list *may* be suitable for wind controllers, but are to be confirmed.
A VL7 is similar to the VL1 except that it can't do layers, it stores only
64 patches, and costs less...
5.3 Where can I buy synth patches optimized for wind controllers?
"The MIDI spec is fairly heavily keyboard oriented, and Velocity is very much a keyboard/percussion kind of notion. It's completely appropriate for controlling the volume (loudness) of patches where you bonk something right at the beginning and the overall loudness is dependent on the strength of that bonk. When you control the volume of your patches by envelope generators, and when you in turn make those envelope generators sensitive to velocity, then you have a classic piano/percussion-like patch.Straightforward wind control (emulating wind instruments) is quite different and requires a whole different patch programming paradigm. The overall loudness of a wind note is NOT determined by some bonk or other event right at the beginning; it's determined continuously by your changing breath control through the whole duration of the note. You might start a note very softly, crescendo, waver up and down, and cut off the note at full volume. The volume envelope of each note can be different--the player becomes the real-time, flexible envelope generator.
When programming for straightforward wind control, the basics are
- Ignore velocity values. They have to be there, to make valid Note-ON messages. In the WX and EWI, these velocity values are basically fillers (although somewhat less so in the case of the WX, see below)
- Set the envelope generators that control the final amplifier(s) to the "square" or neutral shape. Such envelope generators are usually wired in, but setting them to the neutral square shape causes them to tell the amplifier "as far as I'm concerned, play at full volume all the time." If you're converting a piano like patch to wind control, these envelope generators are where you usually have to turn OFF Velocity sensitivity (this causes the patch to ignore velocity values).
- Set the amplifiers to be modulated (controlled) by Breath Control values. Sometimes this can be done directly. Other times, such modulation effectively acts as a valve between the envelope generator and the amplifier, letting anywhere from all or none of the value from the envelope generator get through to the amplifiers. The result is that the output of the amplifiers will now be completely controlled, in real-time, by how hard you blow.
It is possible to keep using the Velocity value in wind patches to control the strength of the initial "chiff" of tonguing (rather than the overall loudness of a note). There is some merit to this; a tonguing chiff occurs only at the beginning of a note. However, this plan works fine for WXs, but not for anything driven by an EWI module. (The Velocity values from a WX seem to be just a snapshot of the current breath control value, and the EWI modules send the same non-zero value every time. You can set what that value will be (64-127), but then it's set until you reprogram the value.)
To handle them both, program the chiff part of the sound so that its volume is controlled by an envelope that is typically percussive (jumps quickly to maximum, then drops almost immediately to zero--this will cause the chiff (of whatever final strength) to be heard only at the beginning of a note); then make that envelope generator (or its output) sensitive to Breath Control. On the WXs, the Velocity value is just a copy of the current BC value, so the result should be indistinguishable from making the envelope generator sensitive to Velocity."
Use breath control (BC) to control the filter frequency and volume of the sound. So, the sound gets louder and brighter as you blow harder.
Use the *inversion* of BC to control the Q of the uWave's filter. Thus the filter is resonant at low BC values (when it is also almost closed, so the knee is at a lower frequency.) This effect is hard to describe, but it basically makes it timbrally richer at a low BC while still keeping the effect of getting "brighter" at higher BC values. This is not to be overdone!
Also use BC to control the sweep through the uWave's wave table. So as you blow harder I move through the different waves... this parameter is smoothed inside the uWave.
Finally, you can assign an LFO to pan the sound a little and then used the BC to modulate the amplitude of the LFO. So as you blow harder the sound shimmers in stereo. Just a little of this one... it can be annoying!
The result is an expressive sound which is warm and full at low BC values and gets "exciting" at higher BC values.
USA UK (inc VAT) Yamaha: WX11/WT11 $750-800 GBP 529 WX11/BT7 $400 GBP 275 Akai: EWI3020 ? GBP 349 EWI3020m ? GBP 599 EWI3030m ? GBP 759 Casio: DH-100 $100 N/A Synthophone: $3450.00 N/A
USA UK Yamaha: WX7/BT7 $300-400 GBP 200 WX11/WT11 ? ? WT11/BT7 ? ? Akai: EVI1000 ? N/A EWI1000 ? N/A EWV2000 ? N/A EWI3000 ? N/A EWI3000m ? N/A EWI3020 ? ? EWI3020m ? ? EWI3030m ? ? Casio: Any DH $50-60 GBP 50
"Produced by Daryl Stuermer (guitarist and writer with Phil Collins and Genesis). On this fusion album I play my trusty WX7 driving a Korg M1, Korg M3R, ESQ-1 and a Kurzweil (1000 series?) that was at the studio; as well as my analog Selmer saxes. The CD is currently out of print but we do have a few copies left. If anyone is interested, please E-mail me and I see if I could ship some out. I may be jumping the gun on this since I don't know how many copies the group leader has."
The information in this FAQ came from many sources, most of them from within wind-l. The contributions from the following people in particular are gratefully acknowledged.
Mr. Abbott..................MrAbbott@aol.com Ken Barry...................barryk@lhl.lib.mo.us Ken Beesley.................Ken.Beesley@xerox.fr Matte Black.................MatteBlack@aol.com Michael V. Briggs...........mbriggs@nexrad.osf.uoknor.edu Mike W Burger...............mike@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu Don Cagen...................DCagen@aol.com Scott A. Dart...............sdart@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu Kelly J.Dean...............st43b@jetson.uh.edu Richard George..............reg94@ecs.southampton.ac.uk Brian Good..................bgood@sundagger.lerc.nasa.gov Craig Hara..................Harable@aol.com Ian Herman..................iherman@msmail4.hac.com Ewan Macpherson.............macpherson@earvax.waisman.wisc.edu Dave.Matsen.................dmatsen@execpc.com Gavin A. McLintock..........gavin@mclintock.com Robert Hill.................NineBanded@aol.com Phil Sallee.................psallee@irvine.com Jan Steinman................jan.bytesmiths@acm.org Tom Ritchford...............tom@mvision.com Richard Rogers..............cstrmr@staffordshire.ac.uk Matti J. Saavalainen........matti@hut.fi Doug Smith..................doasmith@indyvax.iupui.edu George Shernit..............g.shernit@genie.geis.com Paul Tammes.................Paul_Tammes@mbh.wlink.nl Neal Tollisen...............njt@plaza.ds.adp.com Henk Van Wulpen.............Henk.VanWulpen@cs.kuleuven.ac.be
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