Re: New EWI 4000s In The House

[Brian Good <bsgood@adelphia.net>]

HarryEsq@aol.com wrote:
> Hello All:
>  
> I've been trying to use a WX 5 to play VST's in live performance and 
> it's been more difficult than it should be to control.  So, the recent 
> talk about the EWI got me to looking into it and I went to Sam Ash and 
> took the plunge the other day.  I've been watching Michael Brecker EWI 
> videos on You Tube for the past few days in total amazement.  What a 
> great player and a great loss.  Anyway, does anyone have any words of 
> wisdom for me as I begin my exploration of this instrument?  I've 
> checked out a couple of EWI-centric websites but know there are some 
> fine EWI players on this list who must have some pearls they can drop my 
> way.  Looking forward to hearing from you and to sharing my musical 
> progress shortly.
>  
> Harry

Harry:

Per made some good points, and I would just add that the first step in 
building wind-centric patches is to control volume with breath 
controller (CC#2). How you do that depends a bit on the particular 
synth, but usually there's some way to use CC2 as a modulation source 
for the amplifier envelopes. And you'll probably need to adjust the 
attack and decay times on the envelopes to avoid clicks. If the synth 
has a legato mode, enable it. I usually enable portamento, but use short 
portamento times.

Other points... play around with the Key Delay parameter. It controls a 
buffer than saves key presses for a very short time before triggering a 
note, making the instrument a little forgiving if you don't get all the 
keys down at exactly the same time.

If your external module is making noises like a raccoon trying to speak 
Mandarin, you might try turning off some of the CC data. The EWI can 
emit any combination of Breath Controller, Aftertouch, Volume and 
Expression, and some modules can't ingest that much data at once. 
Turning off what you don't need sometimes helps.

I'd also suggest a Nord Micromodular or G2 Engine as a good hardware 
synth for the EWI. If you're after emulation, they're not great, but 
they're really flexible, react well to breath control and have a very 
smooth legato. They're very powerful, too, and you can do some nice 
things if you're willing to do some programming.

(I should note that the G2 Engine has no front panel controls at all. 
Fortunately the EWI's patch changes sent to the internal synth are also 
sent via MIDI out, so you can do patch changes that way.)

Brian