Aria for the EWI USB

[dhsherbert]

Is the Aria software for the EWI USB "stand alone" only or can it also be used as a VSTi?

Thanks,

Doug

[reberclark]

Hi Doug

I received my EWI USB the other day and it's great. It's my first "real" wind controller. It has EWI Standard, Flute, Oboe, Sax, and Valve Instrument (EVI) Fingerings available.

The ARIA software that's included functions to configure the EWI (which fingering mode, transposition etc) as well as providing up to four of its own (Garritan) sound sources. There are many controls over reverb etc included as well. I have used this as a standalone and as a VST in SONAR 7.

The EWI also functions with KP2 player and GPO, JABB, CMB sounds in SONAR really well but doesn't use the ARIA player for these. The ARIA player can be used in SONAR as a VST but only with the EWI sounds it comes with (as far as I can tell - I've only had it three days!)

I am amazed at the flexibility and response time of the EWI USB. I am having NO LATENCY as far as I can tell either in the standalone ARIA player, ARIA as a VST in SONAR or GPO, JABB Etc. in SONAR with KP2.

I am VERY HAPPY with this purchase. I recommend it.

[dhsherbert]

Thank you very much for the reply. I've been looking at the EWI4000 for a long time, but could not justify the cost for our two-person music ministry. Just by chance, I saw the advertisement on the Garritan site and decided this was the answer! I play the saxophone, but can not bring myself to play it in a church service - too many hours years ago in clubs and bars to get over the stigma ...... but's that's another subject ;-)

I've just upgraded to Sonar 8SE and also have the JABB & GPO, so this ounds like will work great for us!

Thanks again and enjoy your new "toy",

Doug Sherbert
Berkeley Springs, WV

[bartp]

reberclark,

could you please do a little demo of the sounds in it.
nothing fancy.. just a short frase of sounds you like.
cant wait to get mine, but in europe we are last in line... (as usual)

thanks
Bart

[snorlax]

The Ongoing Discussion...a soap opera in limerick...

I'm sitting here, regally ******
That AKAI's on the top of my list
But my Scrooge of a mate
Says that I gotta wait
'til our basement repairs are dismissed.

"But Dear, I've been such a great guy,
and I really do NEED that AKAI...
I take out the trash
and give you my cash...
with all your demands I comply."

"You're naught but a slob and a rat,
you sit on that Garritan chat
and get on his forum
that so lacks decorum
and you NEVER hang up the bath mat"

"The basement is finished real soon,
and we've only been waiting since June,
Since we don't have to borrow,
I'll call Patchman tomorrow
for an AKAI to play you a tune"

"You gotta be cracked in the head...
go back out and sleep in the shed.
Make a run for the border
If you place that order,
It's an action you'll certainly dread."

So, friends...is poor ol' Snorlax
just destined to stop in his tracks?
or will Mrs. Snor
rebuild marital rapport
and let him obtain his new ax??????

Reber...
1. See you at Midwest again this year?
2. How is the valve action? Octave switching easy?
3. What kind of oil should I use on the valves? ~|

Snor

[bmdaustin]

Maybe I've missed it, but.......

Is there a definitive listing anywhere of the instrument patches included in this package? Are these ports from existing Garritan libraries or are they new?

[reberclark]

Here is the instrument list from the ARIA software that came with my EWI USB:


1. Woodwinds
Saxophones
Sarrusophone
Sax Alto - Band
Sax Alto - Jazz
Sax Alto - Jazz (TH)
Sax Bari
Sax Bass
Sax Sopranino
Sax Soprano
Sax Tenor Band
Sax Tenor Jazz
Sax Tenor Jazz (TH)
Clarinet
Clarinet Bass
Clarinet Bb
Clarinet Bb (TH)
Clarinet Contrabass
Clarinet Eb
Clarinet Eb Alto
Flute
Flute
Flute Alto
Piccolo
Double Reeds
Contrabassoon
English Horn
Oboe
2. Brass
Baritone Horn
Baritone Horn Section
Flugelhorn
French Horn 1
French Horn 2
French Horn Section
French Horn Section (TH)
Sousaphone
Trombone 1
Trombone 2
Trombone Bass 1
Trombone Bass 2
Trombone Section
Trumpet - Band
Trumpet - Jazz
Trumpet - Jazz (TH)
Trumpet Cup Mute
Trumpet Cup Mute (TH)
Trumpet Harmon Mute
Trumpet Harmon Mute (TH)
Trumpet Section
Tuba
3. Strings
Cello
Cello Section
Dbl Bass
Dbl Bass Section
Full Strings
Viola
Viola Section
Violin
Violin (TH)
Violin Section
4. Pitched Percussion
Chimes
Chimes (legato)
Glockenspiel
Glockenspiel (legato)
Handbells
Handbells (legato)
Xylophone
5. Synthesizer
Arp Josie
Closet Micron
Complex
Complex Chord
Gollyzilla
MG Mod Big Square
MG Mod Lyle
MG Mod SyncSH
Micron Lucky
PPG Plucked
PPG Plucked (legato)
T8A6XT
XT Melodies
XT Square
Xpander 2001
Xpander Bel Chord
Xpander Brazz
Xpander FM Slap
Xpander Vel Synm

As far as I can tell the sounds are ports of Garritan sounds, but I really don't know. I love the bass clarinet sound but they are all fantastic.

The ARIA software is able to record performances directly to .WAV files. This works really well. I was going to put together an audio demo, but I ended up with 77MB of sounds! Maybe some other time. The sounds are of the excellently high quality that we have come to expect from Garritan.

SNORLAX - that was a very finely balanced limerick - great! I WILL be at Midwest this year. Hope to see you.

There is no "valve action" on the EWI. The "keys" are touch sensors that respond to skin galvanism (capacitance).

The octave rollers (under the left (upper) thumb) have taken some getting used to. I am a trumpet player and not used to how they feel. Woodshedding should help this alot. In fact it has just over the past 2-3 days.

Under the right (lower) thumb is a grounding plate and two pitch bend plates. In my laziness I tend to use the top one as a thumbrest and my pitch "gets bent (!)" Woodshedding has helped this as well.

I have found that using my tin whistle fingerings when in EWI woodwind modes is actually easier than using my brass fingerings. The brass fingerings work great with Brass and other sounds (for me). Psychology - a great thing.

As a wind player the mouthpiece/breath technique is a little counter-intuitive. There is ALOT of resistance and the player is encouraged to let air spill out around the mouthpiece - not like a traditional wind instrument at all. Again, practice helps.

These two websites are full of info and downloads for the EWI USB.

www.patchmanmusic.com/akai.html (http://www.patchmanmusic.com/akai.html)
www.akaipro.com/ewiusb (http://www.akaipro.com/ewiusb)

Hope all this helped! Gotta go practice...

[bmdaustin]

One of my biggest issues with the Kontakt Player version of Garritan instruments has been the lack of a functioning filter. The only real control was over volume, and the timbre didn't change with the volume. Has this been solved in the Aria engine and how realistic is the programming in that regard?

[reberclark]

Two things I forgot to mention - I have no idea what the (TH) designation is in the instrument list. It doesn't seems to be in the VERY THIN manual. Any help here would be appreciated.

The "break" (all keys up to all keys down with an octave shift) in the EVI (valve) fingerings occurs between every C and C#. Each octave fingers the same in EVI mode.

The manual must have been put together by a techie instead of a musician. I have caught one error in the EWI STANDARD chart - G and G# are shown as being fingered the same. Also the chart is notated with the accidentals to THE RIGHT of the note they modify. A little hard to read.

[reberclark]

One of my biggest issues with the Kontakt Player version of Garritan instruments has been the lack of a functioning filter. The only real control was over volume, and the timbre didn't change with the volume. Has this been solved in the Aria engine and how realistic is the programming in that regard?

There are PDFs of the ARIA and EWIUSB manuals for download at the AKAI site:

www.akaipro.com/ewiusb (http://www.akaipro.com/ewiusb)

which may answer your questions. In my limited experience (very limited) the timbre does seem to change with increase in air pressure / attack velocity. I am not a "gear guy" however and Matt Traum at www.patchmanmusic.com (http://www.patchmanmusic.com) is the authority on these things, IMHO.

In EWI Config in the ARIA software there are Breath CC1, Breath CC2, Bite CC1, Bite CC2, Velocity, Pitchbend UP and DOWN controls - Breath Gain, Bite Gain, Bite AC (?) gain, Pitch Bend gain, and Key delay controls - MIDI channel, Transpose and Fingering controls - EXTENSIVE reverb controls.

You can save any changes to these as a SYSEX file for recall later.

Other than that - I am learning as I go!

[welldone]

Berniesax has posted some great videos on the Patchman.com Windcontroller-forum showing many of the Garritan sounds controlled by the EWI USB.

The sounds are really great IMHO.

I hope I'll play my Christmas tunes on an EWI this year...

[bartp]

you can find the videos here
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=berniesax56&view=videos
2 soundsdemos and 1 live playing on the ewi usb.
very nice.

[swinkler]

Wow thanks bartp for posting links to the videos. That really opened my eyes to the kind of expression you can draw out of the sounds.

It brings up a question though. Assuming a certain level of technique with the controller itself, can one get that kind of expression out of Kontakt player or is the Aria player that comes with the package required?

Steve Winkler

[brooster]

Here's Berniesax playing the trumpet sample on the Aria:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggg_BqvPY-c

WoW!

The Trumpet sound is NOT from the Aria software.
It is a program called "The Trumpet" VST.

[germancomponist]

Here's Berniesax playing the trumpet sample on the Aria:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggg_BqvPY-c

WoW!

This is very cool!

But brooster, this is the Samplemodeling Trumpet. ;)

[swinkler]

That is very cool. I realize this guy has EWI "chops" but I still have a question about the current Garritan samples in the Kontakt player. That is will this controller "play" those sounds the same or is there some specific programming with the Aria player and in this example the Trumpet?

In other words can one plug in this controller and with practice achieve similar results with the now available Garritan sounds?

Steve

[reberclark]

Hello,

Earlier in this thread I made reference to the "(TH)" designations in the ARIA samples and what it meant. I got the following reply from Tom Hopkins and cite it with his permission:

"The "TH" stands for "Tom Hopkins." When Akai was developing programming for the EWI USB I reviewed their programming and made some suggestions for subtle changes (to selected instruments) to reflect some minor variations on the main programming. I submitted these examples to Akai for their examination. The primary difference in the wind instruments is a somewhat different dynamic filtering - there is a subtly wider change in brightness from soft to loud with the "TH" instruments because they use a steeper filter. Solo violin adds subtly alternating up and down bow strokes for successive notes - useful in faster passages. Akai chose to include my variation examples in the released product and kept the "TH" that I had used in the instrument names to differentiate my changes from the main instruments. For the most part, I doubt that the differences are significant enough for most people to spend much time making a decision between the variations. I will probably submit more elaborate changes to some of the programming for release in future updates, but that remains tentative. In the meantime, have fun!

Tom Hopkins
Vice President/Director of Programming, Garritan Corp."

So there ya go!

[reberclark]

That is very cool. I realize this guy has EWI "chops" but I still have a question about the current Garritan samples in the Kontakt player. That is will this controller "play" those sounds the same or is there some specific programming with the Aria player and in this example the Trumpet?

In other words can one plug in this controller and with practice achieve similar results with the now available Garritan sounds?

Steve

Hi Steve,
My very limited experience with the EWI USB so far is that it will play those samples in the KP2 player. I have not explored the depths of what expression controls are available but I have loaded KP2 with GPO, JABB, and CMB sounds into Sonar and have been able to play those sounds with the EWI USB without the ARIA player loaded. The ARIA samples are not available except thru the ARIA player however (which can be loaded as a VST if you want it).

I am noticing some small "crackling" issues with the KP2 sounds when I vary my breath pressure - especially in the extreme ends of the pressure. This does NOT happen in the ARIA player at all.

There seems to be NO LATENCY on my system with either player.

Hope that helps!

[snorlax]

Steve & Reber...

I got mine yesterday. The mouthpiece has a TON of resistance--at first I thought there was some shipping foam stuck in there or something...:wow:

I thought I had it set up properly a couple times, but it wouldn't finger properly in EVI mode. Whatever happened, third time was a charm. I'll chalk that up to user error.

Fingering with two hands seems very odd, even with the slight change in the left involving the index finger, and the octave rollers still seem foreign.
One thing that helped, though, was to set the transpose to -2 so that Bb is the "open" note and B natural is the xxx xxx note in EVI mode. I don't own a C euphonium!!

As Reber sez...must woodshed!! I tried playing with a couple YouTube Bill Evans tunes that I use for euphonium practice...just wholenotes, but it worked ok.

I did try to hook it into GPO and JABB...I got noise and vibrato, I think, but then had to leave for brass choir rehearsal.

So after a couple hours, I'm excited...now let's see how much time I have to devote to it. That's the problem with all this...

Reber...glad you'll be at Midwest...see ya there!! )(~

Jim

[brooster]

Steve & Reber...

I got mine yesterday. The mouthpiece has a TON of resistance--at first I thought there was some shipping foam stuck in there or something...:wow:

I thought I had it set up properly a couple times, but it wouldn't finger properly in EVI mode. Whatever happened, third time was a charm. I'll chalk that up to user error.

Fingering with two hands seems very odd, even with the slight change in the left involving the index finger, and the octave rollers still seem foreign.
One thing that helped, though, was to set the transpose to -2 so that Bb is the "open" note and B natural is the xxx xxx note in EVI mode. I don't own a C euphonium!!

Jim

I was a trombone/euphoinum/tuba player and after trying the trumpet fingering on the EWI4000s for several weeks I went back to the default fingering and found it much easier. If you don't feel like the trumpet fingering is working after a while you might want to give the default fingering a try.

bruce

[snorlax]

Thanx for the tip, Bruce...After I work with EVI mode for a while, I'll keep your advice in mind...I probably won't have much time until January, so I'll just mess around with it as I can now & get more into it later.
I wish every day had 36 hours in it...:(
Best,
Jim W.

[reberclark]

I like Bruce's idea about going to the standard EWI fingerings, but after living with the EVI fingerings for awhile I seem to be getting a feel for it.

I may have posted this before but please note an error in the EWI Standard Fingering chart - it indicates G and G# with identical fingerings.

Also the accidentals are on the RIGHT side - irritating but not insuperable.

("insuperable?" who ever sez THAT?!!)

[reberclark]

So I was looking for a stand for my EWI USB and ended up making one from a cheap ($13.50) guitar stand, a plastic bowl and shelf padding from Wal-Mart, and a short bungee cord.

Here are some shots (please excuse the mess):

http://home.comcast.net/~reberclark/stand 1.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~reberclark/Stand 2.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~reberclark/tray detail.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~reberclark/tray detail 2.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~reberclark/bungee 1.JPG

I had trouble with the "fork" on the stand swaying back and forth so I added the bungee cord.

The basic design was borrowed from a post on the wind controller forum at: http://www.patchmanmusic.com/forum/index.php

Just thought you might want to see it.

[swinkler]

Thanks Reber,

My only concern was being able to use full GPO with the controller. The set of sounds that comes with the controller is generous to be sure, but I'm sure there are inevitably some I'd want to use that aren't a part of the "AKAI" set.

Steve

[drdancm]

Here is the instrument list from the ARIA software that came with my EWI USB:


1. Woodwinds
Saxophones
Sarrusophone
Sax Alto - Band
Sax Alto - Jazz
Sax Alto - Jazz (TH)
Sax Bari
Sax Bass
Sax Sopranino
Sax Soprano
Sax Tenor Band
Sax Tenor Jazz
Sax Tenor Jazz (TH)
Clarinet
Clarinet Bass
Clarinet Bb
Clarinet Bb (TH)
Clarinet Contrabass
Clarinet Eb
Clarinet Eb Alto
Flute
Flute
Flute Alto
Piccolo
Double Reeds
Contrabassoon
English Horn
Oboe
2. Brass
Baritone Horn
Baritone Horn Section
Flugelhorn
French Horn 1
French Horn 2
French Horn Section
French Horn Section (TH)
Sousaphone
Trombone 1
Trombone 2
Trombone Bass 1
Trombone Bass 2
Trombone Section
Trumpet - Band
Trumpet - Jazz
Trumpet - Jazz (TH)
Trumpet Cup Mute
Trumpet Cup Mute (TH)
Trumpet Harmon Mute
Trumpet Harmon Mute (TH)
Trumpet Section
Tuba
3. Strings
Cello
Cello Section
Dbl Bass
Dbl Bass Section
Full Strings
Viola
Viola Section
Violin
Violin (TH)
Violin Section
4. Pitched Percussion
Chimes
Chimes (legato)
Glockenspiel
Glockenspiel (legato)
Handbells
Handbells (legato)
Xylophone
5. Synthesizer
Arp Josie
Closet Micron
Complex
Complex Chord
Gollyzilla
MG Mod Big Square
MG Mod Lyle
MG Mod SyncSH
Micron Lucky
PPG Plucked
PPG Plucked (legato)
T8A6XT
XT Melodies
XT Square
Xpander 2001
Xpander Bel Chord
Xpander Brazz
Xpander FM Slap
Xpander Vel Synm

As far as I can tell the sounds are ports of Garritan sounds, but I really don't know. I love the bass clarinet sound but they are all fantastic.

The ARIA software is able to record performances directly to .WAV files. This works really well. I was going to put together an audio demo, but I ended up with 77MB of sounds! Maybe some other time. The sounds are of the excellently high quality that we have come to expect from Garritan.

SNORLAX - that was a very finely balanced limerick - great! I WILL be at Midwest this year. Hope to see you.

There is no "valve action" on the EWI. The "keys" are touch sensors that respond to skin galvanism (capacitance).

The octave rollers (under the left (upper) thumb) have taken some getting used to. I am a trumpet player and not used to how they feel. Woodshedding should help this alot. In fact it has just over the past 2-3 days.

Under the right (lower) thumb is a grounding plate and two pitch bend plates. In my laziness I tend to use the top one as a thumbrest and my pitch "gets bent (!)" Woodshedding has helped this as well.

I have found that using my tin whistle fingerings when in EWI woodwind modes is actually easier than using my brass fingerings. The brass fingerings work great with Brass and other sounds (for me). Psychology - a great thing.

As a wind player the mouthpiece/breath technique is a little counter-intuitive. There is ALOT of resistance and the player is encouraged to let air spill out around the mouthpiece - not like a traditional wind instrument at all. Again, practice helps.

These two websites are full of info and downloads for the EWI USB.

www.patchmanmusic.com/akai.html (http://www.patchmanmusic.com/akai.html)
www.akaipro.com/ewiusb (http://www.akaipro.com/ewiusb)

Hope all this helped! Gotta go practice...

)(~
Thanks for posting this info. As amazing as it sounds to a reasonable person this listing was not made available anywhere by either Akai, nor Garritan. Getting information from a lot of companies is like pulling teeth. I don't understand it at all.

I've been playing wind controllers for many years including the older EWI-3020 as well as the 4000s. I asked Garritan and Akai both if they would make the Aria player and sound samples available for owners of EWI-4000s and at what cost. Akai answered right away and said that they had no plans to do that.
Garritan has not answered and the entire Update to updates - forum section seems to have disappeared along with my post. Again, this is not surprising to me -it is like pulling teeth.

There is so much information that should be made available in a single document which would avoid having to post so many questions on forums like this -but that would not waste everyone's time quite so much, would it?

Anyway, I really appreciate the time you took to post all of the included sounds that come with the EWI USB. They are pretty much all of the sounds I would normally select from GPO and JABB.

My question is this. How well does the vibrato work with these sounds? I mean specifically how well can you control the vibrato by jaw pressure on the mouthpiece? This has always been a big problem in my experience -either because the pressure controller and/or the sampler players were not properly designed to do this very well. With the various Yamaha wind controllers this appears to work somewhat better.

When done right you should get a smooth natural sounding vibrato by switching the samples rather than imposing a very mechanical sounding midi vibrato that sounds very unnatural.

Thanks a lot,

Dan

http://www.kara-moon.com/index.php?modid=mod03&l_submenu_id=m001_03_06&artist=2010Jazz

[reberclark]

)(~
Thanks for posting this info. As amazing as it sounds to a reasonable person this listing was not made available anywhere by either Akai, nor Garritan.

My question is this. How well does the vibrato work with these sounds? I mean specifically how well can you control the vibrato by jaw pressure on the mouthpiece? This has always been a big problem in my experience -either because the pressure controller and/or the sampler players were not properly designed to do this very well.

When done right you should get a smooth natural sounding vibrato by switching the samples rather than imposing a very mechanical sounding midi vibrato that sounds very unnatural.

I share your frustration with the EWI USB manual. I would bet that they concentrated on getting the instrument released ASAP for the holiday season and left the manual to be revised later. I do not understand this lapse, however. I could edit, expand, clarify and correct this manual with one day's work - even though my EWI experience is limited to the EWI USB.

As to the vibrato - it seems easy enough to produce - but some of the samples are sampled WITH vibrato (violin comes to mind). The sensitivity of the bite is programmable but I haven't messed with it yet. I have to be very careful, I have found, to not overdo the bite or things sounds like a bad dream!

I have tried this instrument with the ARIA sounds - which work very sensitively and clearly with it - and when I use it with GPO, JABB or CMB (or other non-Garritan sounds) in SONAR or in the KP2 Player standalone there are issues (clicks and pops/oversensitivity/no sensitivity) in some sounds and not others.

Hope this helped.

[drdancm]

Thanks for the quick reply.

To be more precise my question is does the Aria player interface, when playing the bundled sounds allow you to smoothly switch from let's say a flute without vibrato to flute with vibrato by means of the putting pressure on the mouth sensor? It would have to gradually cross fade/blend the two samples proportional to the mouthpiece pressure?

If the vibrato is not produced by cross fading samples with and without vibrato then it will likely not be a very natural sounding vibrato. If this is the only way to get vibrato, how good is it? I assume that Aria provides a sensitivity adjustment for vibrato amount and possibly vibrato width. Does it?

Thanks very much,

Dan

[brooster]

Thanks for the quick reply.

To be more precise my question is does the Aria player interface, when playing the bundled sounds allow you to smoothly switch from let's say a flute without vibrato to flute with vibrato by means of the putting pressure on the mouth sensor? It would have to gradually cross fade/blend the two samples proportional to the mouthpiece pressure?

If the vibrato is not produced by cross fading samples with and without vibrato then it will likely not be a very natural sounding vibrato. If this is the only way to get vibrato, how good is it? I assume that Aria provides a sensitivity adjustment for vibrato amount and possibly vibrato width. Does it?

Thanks very much,

Dan

I don't have the EWI USB with Aria but I did have to EWI4000s and while there are times that it is nice to have the vibrato in the sample and it would also be nice to switch between non-vibrato samples to vibrato samples while playing don't under estimate the vibrato you can achieve with the bite sensor and, in the case of the flute, the more accurate "vibrato" which is a tremolo effect done with quickly changing the breath intensity with just a tiny amount of bite pitch bend vibrato thrown in.

You control the rate and intensity of both vibrato and tremolo in real time.

[reberclark]

brooster is right - the sensitivity of the breath sensor is so acute that normal breath pulse (diaphramatic) vibrato techniques work very well. The breath sensor is so sensitive that when I use the bite sensor it sounds a bit too extreme, so I tread lightly and it works very well.

[drdancm]

Reply to Brooster & Reberclark,

I'll have to try the diaphragm vibrato again, because in the past it really was not giving me anything that I liked. I know exactly what you mean and I've used it with recorder and flute.

Does the Aria player have some sort of sensitivity control for the mouthpiece pressure sensor?

Thanks,

Dan

[snorlax]

As a low brass player, I am used to jaw vibrato, but the EWI USB does have a hair trigger.

It's gonna be interesting to see how playing the EWI affects playing the euphonium, if at all.

After three days, I am still finding valve mode odd, having to move the one left-hand finger and the thumb, but I can say for sure that transposing down the whole step made things a lot easier for me when trying to read and play.

Maybe I will try tinwhistle mode :confused:

BTW...on GPO instruments, I find that the modwheel works but there is also unwanted vibrato even if I turn the instrument's vibrato down to zero.
I'll have to fiddle with some parameters & see how to get rid of it...maybe it's aftertouch, since I had breath CC1 set to breath controller coarse and CC2 set to aftertouch. I'll try turning the aftertouch thing off on GPO & see what happens.

Jim

[snorlax]

Reply to Brooster & Reberclark,

I'll have to try the diaphragm vibrato again, because in the past it really was not giving me anything that I liked. I know exactly what you mean and I've used it with recorder and flute.

Does the Aria player have some sort of sensitivity control for the mouthpiece pressure sensor?

Thanks,

Dan

Dan, on the ARIA player, there is a TOOLS menu that you can use to configure the EWI.
There are sliders for:
Breath Gain
Bite Gain
Bite AC gain (seems to be the vibrato controller)
Pitch Bend Gain
Key Delay (to get rid of glitches--the "valves" come up REAL fast!! :))

[maiki]

Has anyone here played both the EWI USB and Yamaha WX5, and could compare the two?

[brooster]

Has anyone here played both the EWI USB and Yamaha WX5, and could compare the two?

I have played all the WX7, 11 and 5 and the EWI 1000, 3000 and 4000s but I have not played the EWI-USB.

I was a trombone, Euphonium, and tuba player with some flute skills. As a hippie, in years gone by it was required to play the bamboo flute to reach the grasshopper status. I did eventually get a Boehm silver flute.

I played the WX gizmos for at least 5 years before I tried the EWI.
In one day I was an EWI convert. It's hard to explain why but the EWI is amazing.

With all the improvements to the 4000s and the introduction and price of the EWI-USB that does tilt the scales.

As a former valve instrument player I never adapted to the EVI type valve fingering. I would recommend that valve players who can not pick up the EVI fingering give the default EWI fingering a go.

[snorlax]

As a former valve instrument player I never adapted to the EVI type valve fingering. I would recommend that valve players who can not pick up the EVI fingering give the default EWI fingering a go.

As a current valve instrument player, here's an example of what's getting me...on euphonium, the D waaay below the bass staff and the D right below the bass staff are 1-2-4 on my main horn...the D in the bass staff is 1-2. the two Ds above it are open (but could be played 1-2 with some sacrifice of intonation and/or tone quality). The D-flats are 2-3-4, 2-3, and 2.

On the EWI in valve mode, ALL of the Ds are xxx xx- (LH 1-2-3, RH 1-2) and all of the d-flats are xxx -xx so it's as if I am using the (usually unwanted) alternate fingering in the upper octaves and ignoring the fourth valve in the lower octaves.

Strangely enough, I can sort out different fingerings on two euphoniums...on one, the low Ds are 1-2-4, on the other they are 2-3-4...on one C above middle C is best played open, but on the other, it's better with 1, etc...

Maybe this Snorlax is just too old to learn new tricks...or he is going to face the stark reality that he can't get this thing happening fully in two hours' time.~|

I'm gonna give EWI mode a try...but even the mere thought of being anything approaching or approximating a saxophone player sends shivers down my spine.

Snor

[bartp]

Has anyone here played both the EWI USB and Yamaha WX5, and could compare the two?

ive got both.
started a long time ago playing the wx5.
now ive got the ewi usb for some time.

the difference is that the wx5 has a larger octave range.. 2 octaves more to play. down or up.

I really wanna like the ewi usb, but for now the wx 5 still wins.
I think the breath sensor on the wx is better.. its responding better with midi.

The ewi 4000 and earlier models are a different kind. Before the 4000 series Akai used CV instead of midi.. This is why so many player prefered the akai ewi.. The resolution of CV is so much higher than midi resulting is much better response to breathcontrol.

But since the ewi usb is only midi , that advantage is lost.
i still like the akai usb a lot.. i play at home all the time.. the iinstrument feels more solid than the wx.. But its just the feeling.. The wx certainly is not a toy in that aspect.

so i think it comes down to personal prefferences and looks..
i think the akai does look better.. The size is just right.. The akai 4000 series looks off to me.. too big.

the fact that you can power the akai using usb is great.
for now i wont sell my wx5 just yet...

bart

[Javaj]

Did anyone figure out what the "TH" meant on some of the Aria instruments. I am thinking THroat- but couldn't get any growling effect to work?

[snorlax]

Did anyone figure out what the "TH" meant on some of the Aria instruments. I am thinking THroat- but couldn't get any growling effect to work?

Hi...
TH is for Tom Hopkins, who did additional versions of some of the instruments...they have slightly different programming than the equivalent "non-TH" instruments. What the differences are, I couldn't tell you, though.

Jim

[jmpaquette]

Hi...
TH is for Tom Hopkins, who did additional versions of some of the instruments...they have slightly different programming than the equivalent "non-TH" instruments. What the differences are, I couldn't tell you, though.

Jim

They're very subtle refinements. I'm doing a set of scales with each to compare them - it isn't something I can hear clearly while I'm playing.


Joe