Hey all, hope this video helps shed some light on this cool instrument! lmk if you have any questions :)

Just wondering how hard I might be hit by the glorious American duties and processing fees.

So I ordered an FM-1 to try to get in on the hot custom firmware action. I don't have the device yet. Might still be a couple weeks before I get it. Nonetheless, I was able to build an entire wind synth for it over the weekend.. You can play it right now in your browser with any wind controller, if you want to check it out: https://jcroft.github.io/fm1-windsynth/

You won't be able to install it on a physical device yet — I don't want to put that out there until I've been able to test it. That said, if you have an FM-1, are technically savvy, and are willing to to take the brick risk, I'd be happy to share a build privately.

It has:

- Several Plaits engines (Virtual Analog, 2-Op FM, 6-Op FM with DX7 Patches, Harmonic/Additive, and a few others)
- Full support for wind controllers, including a mod matrix with several destionation
- A Noise oscillator that runs alongside the main engine (based on Plaits Noise)
- An LFO with several destinations 
- An FX suite that includes multi-type distortion, modulator, delay, and reverb modules
- A Strymon-style Cloud reverb that is my own design that I'm pretty proud of (most everything else here is just me wiring together existing OSS projects, but the Cloud reverb is actually original!)

Would love to hear your thoughts!

(I suspect it wouldn't be that hard to turn this thing into a VST, so that could come at some point too (the main work there would be in creating a full-screen UI)).

Has anybody tried using a windsynth connected to an MVave FM-1? If so, how did it work, and did you try one of the various free firmware versions floating around?
Thanks

They had gone dormant for a bit, and I thought, this is it, but they just announced a beta of a lot of new stuff.

https://atelier.aodyo.com/

I started a tour with some cartoon animation guiding me, and I thought, "This is going to be bad!", but then I get a pleasant tour of a whole brand-new slick-looking editor librarian for the thing, all in a webpage, and tons of other features.

I've had something like half a dozen brands of electronic wind instrument over the past 39 years, and only two did I actually like - the Sylphyo and the WX7. The reason I go time and again for the WX7 in live shows is the Sylphyo is a little uncomfortable, but also, it doesn't accept incoming program changes, so I'd have to look down at that screen and fiddle in a show, which is just right out. (I hear that might have been fixed too but I haven't checked it out yet.)

It is my best guess that they have become AI assisted, and I mean that in a good way. AI allows non-engineers to write bad code, but it allows experienced engineers to write a lot more good code.

You tried to voice to text your friend to invite them to coffee and your phone transcribes your words as XpressO instead of Espresso

Who else has got any good ones?

Recorded this one a few years ago, and I might have had this on here before that stupid bot invasion. I’m trying to rebuild a SoundCloud account so I decided to upload it there and figured I would share to Reddit as well, enjoy and jam out!

Hello - after about 10+ years of owning an EWI5000, I'd like to move on to something else. I'm running into some strange issues with it like random volume drops and a glitchy LED display, so I just think it's time. Trumpet is my main instrument (and tuba), so I'd prefer a synth that has EVI fingerings, has decent 'natural' sounds and especially the ability to add/create custom ones.

I am considering the Clarii PRO C20 but not sure how it performs for EVI players. I am also considering Diosynth and the Aerophone AE20.

So, my main question is are there any Clarii PRO players out there who have experience with its EVI mode? Also, a general question about it is how expressive can it get with note bending, vibrato, etc and especially jumping between octaves? (I do like the thumb rollers on the AKAI)

Thanks!

an older recording but i decided to restart my soundcloud and needed some interesting stuff on there, enjoy! Recorded this on EWI+ laptop while I was out camping at 4000 feet

Hi all, I'm Jared. I've played saxophone since high school, and I'm a programmer by trade. For the past while I've been building Starbreath, a soft-synth made specifically for wind controllers. I built it because I wanted something that responds to breath the way a real horn does. I didn't want a sample library with a breath CC mapped to volume.

What it is:

• No samples. Every note is computed live from a physical model: a column of air driven by a jet, a reed or a pair of lips. Breath and bite move the physics directly, so a soft note has a different tone from a loud one, not just a lower volume.
• 13 instruments:
  • Flutes: Native American-style flute (single and double), shakuhachi, bansuri, concert flute, pan flute
  • Reeds: clarinet, duduk, tenor sax
  • Brass: trombone, trumpet, muted trumpet
  • Drones underneath: singing bowl, tanpura, breath pad
• Made for wind players:
  • Adjustable breath curve
  • Legato vs. tongued attacks
  • Glide, and vibrato from bite
  • Octave "bark" on hard accents
  • MIDI learn for everything
  • Picks up an EWI or Aerophone automatically
• Spatial reverb. It builds a 3D room around you (kiva, cathedral, cave, canyon and more), with shimmer and freeze on the sustain pedal, decoded binaurally for headphones. It leans ambient and meditative, but there's also a jazz harmonizer (quartal, So What and sus voicings) and the tenor and muted trumpet work well for late-night playing.
• Formats: CLAP, VST3 and a standalone app for Windows, macOS and Linux.

Upfront about AI: I wrote the software in partnership with Claude Code (Anthropic's AI coding tool). The sound design and tuning are mine, done by playing it on my own controller. The audio isn't AI-generated. It's DSP code running a physics model in real time. I've put more detail on the process in the first comment.

It's free to download for a limited time:

• Site: https://vsti.im-a-bird.com/
• 2-minute film of it playing: https://youtu.be/vEQ6CWcRqUw (use headphones)

I'd really like to hear from people who play: how the breath response feels on your controller, which instruments work or don't, and what's missing. I'm happy to answer anything.

Hello! I just recently bought an EWI 5000, something that I've wanted for awhile, but I'm kind of struggling just figuring out what I should be doing first.

For context, I played Trombone, Baritone/Euphonium, and some Tuba from 5th to 12th grade, but have stepped away from music for a few reasons since starting college, but 4 years later I decided I really missed making music and having fun with it, and an EWI is something I've always loved, so I decided to get the Akai EWI 5000 and get good at it.

My EWI is missing three notable things: a stand for the instrument, a neck strap, and an antenna for the wireless receiver. The antenna is is whatever for now, I've just been using headphones, and I plan on getting the neck strap and stand ASAP.

Before I get what I'm missing, I was wondering a few things. First, are there any books or good video resources that you all would recommend for me to learn with? Second, would you recommend sticking with the normal EWI fingering mode, or using the EVI (Brass) mode? And third, I'm having a bit of difficulty fully grasping how to hold my hands around the instrument and using the pinky keys/remembering the fingering chart, if there's any tips you can give me for that. It's been so long since I've learned an instrument!

Note for mods and other people: I just made this account, but no I'm not a bot! I just really had to make an account to ask for some help. :)

You can effectively play East Beast using a wind controller. Was messing around with my Keystep 37 as an arp/sequencer last night and discovered it can convert the MIDI input to CV gate/pitch in real time. I setup East Beast with the pitch/gate from my Keystep, and used my iPad to filter out everything but breath control. I'm sending that to MIDI input on the East Beast and it's converted to CV using the multi-out (which has a MIDI learn function). That goes to the filter modulation...and you have pitch, gate, and filter. The signal routing is a bit involved, but it works.

For whatever reason, East Beast does not like the MIDI note data directly from the wind controller. Using the Keystep to convert it to CV works very good.

https://youtu.be/j1Qv6_DzHLU?si=dWd7xSgS6uk8ZmiT

My EWI5000 can't send MIDI input to Reaper. Windows detects the USB connection (I hear the USB connection chime), and the MIDI endpoint shows EWI5000 in system devices. But no MIDI note or CC signal appears in Reaper's MIDI monitor, even after factory reset and trying the official EWI Editor.I have a desktop PC and a wired over-ear headphone. I don’t have an external audio interface, and my computer seems to have no built-in sound card.

When I blow hard on my EWI, nothing shows up in the MIDI monitor. Today is my first day with this wind controller.

I can hear sound from the EWI’s built-in sound through my headphones, but Reaper receives no MIDI input signal at all. I wanted to play some T-Square pieces.

I play conventional instruments primarily and I have been approaching the EWI the same way i would approach any other instrument; i.e. learning scales but i've found that some keys are SUPER awkward to play in because their range extends past the default octave roller, requiring a change in octave and a full switch between fingers. while i've managed to do this after some practice while playing scales i can see this becoming super problematic when playing more complex music. do most windsynth players use the transpose feature rather than knowing all of the scales?

My 4yo loves to have fun playing with my akai ewi usb and akai mpk mini. I bought another ewi usb used for him, and would like to encourage him to have fun and play with it.

What we like to do with the mpk mini is to try weird sounds on Vital and explore music that way.

Do you guys have any story / recommendation / experience to share on how to get a four years old to have fun with an ewi usb? Fun synths to try, fun patches or exercises, etc?

I’d like to get a wind synth and had originally been leaning pretty strongly toward the NuRAD (the only alternatives I knew about were the Akai EWI and Roland Aerophone). Recently, though, I came across some videos of the ASM Diosynth, and it caught my attention, so now I’m wondering whether that might actually be a better fit for me.

For some background, I’m a professional-level wind player (double reeds and sax), but just play for fun now.

For anyone who has experience with both the NuRAD and Diosynth, how would you compare them in terms of playability, expressiveness, limitations, built-in sound capabilities, and learning curve? (The soundboard-looking thing is foreign to me (Behringer Neutron and Empress Zoia Euroburo?), but I'm willing to learn.)

Any firsthand experiences would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Hey all! I make electronic music, and bought a wind synth to play my own melodies live at my shows.

I love this instrument, the AKAI EWI 5000.

I bought the Art of Wind Synth: Breath of Serum patches, and have started looking at what he did to make them that way.

Other than what I've listed below, what are other parameters to control with the breath?

• Wavetable Position (WTPos in Serum)
• Filter Cutoff
• Filter Level
• Filter Drive
• Filter Var
• Filter Resonance
• Noise Level
• Distortion Wet

Would love your thoughts!

https://store.robkoo.com/blogs/news/clarii-minis-clariios-3-0-update-flute-play-and-3d-glide

hey all! i just got my ewi 5000 used and it works perfectly but the finger contacts on the back and front have some tarnish. is it known what metal the keys are so they can be cleaned? tia.

I mean, it's on the Piccolo even. Also, am I correct that the settings can only be changed on the AE-20 itself, not on the Android app?

by the way, do you have any fave instrument on the AE-20?

I'm considering which windsynth to purchase and currently I'm split. The Diosynth seems like it has very great functionality and feels very good to play. Additionally it has convenient and modern controls. However I am worried about sound customization. I understand that there is a digital patch editor (forgive me if my terms are wrong I'm very new to this) that you can use to edit their provided patches, but from what I've seen online I can't port or purchase other new sounds onto it. I'm interested in exploring a lot of genres, including metal, so having the ability to use sounds not limited to the narrow amount provided to me from the initial purchase feels important. Perhaps I'm wrong here and Diosynth actually can have patches ported to it from elsewhere, but from what I've seen it can't (please correct me if wrong). And then the AE-20 comes in. I've heard the build feels a little cheaper, more plasticky, and isn't as satisfying to play as the Diosynth is, but Aerophone has a really library of sound packs you can buy, up to like 30 new sounds just for one genre. Whatever knowledge you guys can lend me or recommend would be much appreciated. Maybe I'm under or overestimating different capabilities of the instruments.

The pipe had come off inside and leaked moisture over the circuit boards. Cleaned them with isopropyl alcohol.

The only thing now is the oled screen does not work otherwise everything else is going fine.

Is it possible to get new oled spares? Carry on 2 pro is the model.