r/windsynth

I've been saving up some money and am looking into picking up a wind synth to spice up my local jam sessions and let me practice in my small apartment in the $500-750 price range. I've played sax for about 12 years, so it's not so much about learning to play as it is helping me practice more consistently (especially considering I play bari sax, that thing is LOUD). From what I've gathered, the Yamaha YDS-120 is my best bet for that translatability, while the Akai EWI Solo is more of its own instrument, and the Roland AE-50 fits somewhere in between. Reviews and product pages can only get me so far so I'm turning to the people who know these things best. Main features I'm looking for, in order of priority:

- Fingerings close enough to a real saxophone that I can use it for practice purposes
- Can plug into a sound system for jam sessions (side note: a friend of mine brings his wind synth to the jam sometimes and plugs it into a little wireless transmitter in a cardboard box for sound, willing to get one of those depending on the model)
- Good-sounding patches
- $500-750 range is ideal

Just looking for some testimonials about each of those products to help me in my research. Or if you know of any other products around that price range, recommend them please!

I've got a few spare wind synths lying around. A buddy of mine wants a MIDI breath controller for playing keys.

I'm wondering, could I rig up a wind synth to sit on the table, with a PVC tube attached and sealed around the mouthpiece, to make a hands free CC controller, to spare him from buying a dedicated controller?

Obviously the controller would spit out a single note, but the CC data from breath could be routed without issue. I'm mainly asking if it'd work regarding the air flow, I imagine moisture would be the primary issue.

He's not looking for the precision that we typically expect out of a pro wind synth, mainly as an additional modulation source.

Im thinking of buying my first windsynth! I have experience with Ableton, guitar, drums and keys but not yet in this field of instruments.

I love experimental stuff, drone/ambient and spiritual jazz (pharoah Sanders, Alice Coltrane) and would like to do stuff like this with my new windsynth.

I would like some simulators for real wind instruments but also go real synthy. I would love to send the signal through my guitarpedal-chain for more effects

Currently thinking about a Roland ae-20 or Akai Ewi 5000.

Are these reasonable considerations?

What would be up and downsides with both options?

Any tips, ideas or thoughts are welcome!

This is a wonderful instrument. Really. My heart goes out to the people who worked on it, and whose work was let down by a few bad decisions and bugs.

Before I ask gear4music to take it back again I wanted to document some of the bugs and weirdness. The fingerings around crossing the octave are not documented in the manual (perhaps to avoid putting buyers off?), so for your convenience, here they are, showing what the middle D fingering and the trill keys produce in various modes:

Brisa mode:

middle D fingering: B. yes, a B.

left trill key while playing C: D

left trill key while playing C#: D#.

right trill key while playing C: B flat

right trill key while playing C#: B.

Some seem like bugs, some seem more like bad decisions.

Flute mode, low octave:

Middle D fingering: Low D. This is just awful.

left trill key while playing C: Low D again. Ideal if you often want to trill between middle C and low D, I guess?

left trill key while playing C#: Low D again.

right trill key while playing C: Middle D

right trill key while playing C#: Low D#. Twist ending there.

The middle D fingering producing low D is just a dealbreaker really, but the extremely strange output of the trill keys makes me wonder if it's bugs rather than just bad features. The Brisa mode trill keys producing B I can sorta-kinda get, whereas these assignments just seem completely random.

Flute mode, middle octave:

Middle D fingering: Middle D. This is one of the very few notes that does what you'd expect.

left trill key while playing C: Also middle D.

left trill key while playing C#: Also middle D.

right trill key while playing C: High D.

right trill key while playing C#: Middle D#

This is the same, one octave up, which makes sense, but the trill key assignments are still extremely strange.

Other bugs/misfeatures:

It is possible to get the Brisa stuck in a state in which A and B fingerings produce the same note. You can do this by doing certain cross-fingerings but I can't work out the exact recipe. Changing instruments or turning off and on again seems to fix it. This is awful.

It is possible to get the Brisa stuck in a state in which when portamento is on, going from A to B continues to produce an A. This is hard to duplicate. Again, you need to change instruments or reboot.

Finally... get this... the concert and bass flutes are at the correct pitches but the alto flute is at concert flute pitch! It does seem to be a sample of an alto flute, but it plays the same pitch as a concert flute. It seems impossible that with all the effort that must have gone into the Brisa, that could be a bug. And yet...

I dunno. I just don't know what happened here. If they update the firmware, I'll buy it again.

Trillo, the new digital flute by ARTinoise has just started it's Kickstarter pledge drive.

Trillo apparently operates much like a digital recorder instrument, by default.

It supports wired MIDI over USB and BLE MIDI.

It also has breath and orientation sensors for expressivity.

It has a lithium battery rechargeable via usb.

There is a companion app that provides customization.

This is a plastic, inexpensive product designed to appeal to the low end of the market.

It has onboard instruments and can output audio to headphones or an amplified speaker.

This is developed by the same people that brought out the re.corder instrument.

I pledged for one because I was curious. I got in on the VIP price of 59 euros (about $69 US) plus shipping.

This post is NOT a recommendation. It is just to make people who might be interested aware of the opportunity. I am not affiliated with ARTinoise in any way, other than just a customer.

I bought an EWI USB a while ago and have been trying to get it up and running for a while now. I’m looking to get it to play some realistic wind sounds for some groups I’m in(clarinet, trumpet, etc.) but every time I try and set it up to something on my windows computer it either sounds terrible or has a delay. Does anyone know of a good software to use and/or patches to use? In addition do you know if there’s any tutorials on how to set it up?