How To Play A Wind Controller: Making EWI USB Sound Like A Saxophone
Book Details
Author(s)Amen Zwa
PublishersOnit, Inc.
ISBN / ASINB00FRJRAWA
ISBN-13978B00FRJRAW2
MarketplaceFrance 🇫🇷
Description
© 2013 and 2014 by sOnit, Inc. All rights reserved.
I know from experience that musicians who experiment with electronic instruments gravitate toward keyboards. I wrote this book to persuade those keyboardists to give MIDI wind controllers a try, because wind controllers are technically as sophisticated as keyboards, and they offer greater musical expressivity at a fraction of the cost.
Since this book is written for keyboardists, I begin with an explanation of how conventional wind instruments work. I, then, describe what wind controllers are, their types, brands, models, and their similarities and differences. Finally, I conclude with a detailed explanation of how to configure and play the Akai EWI USB, a new, inexpensive, and versatile wind controller. We will use this instrument to drive SamplingModeling’s The Saxophones software synthesiser, hosted as an Audio Unit plug-in within GarageBand, Apple’s consumer-grade, digital audio workstation, running on Mac OS X. I chose this set-up because it is well balanced in terms of realism, function, and price.
A wind controller can admirably emulate any wind instrument, and indeed just about any musical instrument, if hooked up to an appropriate synthesiser. But my main focus here is on using a wind controller as an electronic facsimile of the saxophone. My intended audience is the adventurous, amateur keyboardists seeking expressive freedom—those who wish to explore beyond the bounds of carefully crafted loops and into the realm of impromptu performances that pour forth from the recesses of the soul.
The focus here is on using the EWI with The Saxophones software synthesiser to emulate the saxophone sound. This is not a book about GarageBand. Indeed, GarageBand is not hospitable to wind controllers, since its built-in software instruments are designed for MIDI keyboards. That is the reason why we need specialty software synthesiser like The Saxophones. But once you understood the basics of how these bits work, you can expand your horizons by experimenting with other wind controllers, other digital audio workstations, and other sounds—string, percussion, or even burping. In any event, I hope that my readers will go on to adopt wind controllers.
In this edition, I have added a chapter about my Android app, Razor ♯♮♠EWI Fingering Chart (http://goo.gl/5r30V6). This app shows fingering charts for the standard-range notes of the four instruments that the Akai EWI emulates: saxophone (Bâ™3 to F6), oboe (Bâ™3 To A6), flute (C4 To C7), and trumpet (E3 to C6). It is a companion app to this book.
— Amen Zwa, Esq.
I know from experience that musicians who experiment with electronic instruments gravitate toward keyboards. I wrote this book to persuade those keyboardists to give MIDI wind controllers a try, because wind controllers are technically as sophisticated as keyboards, and they offer greater musical expressivity at a fraction of the cost.
Since this book is written for keyboardists, I begin with an explanation of how conventional wind instruments work. I, then, describe what wind controllers are, their types, brands, models, and their similarities and differences. Finally, I conclude with a detailed explanation of how to configure and play the Akai EWI USB, a new, inexpensive, and versatile wind controller. We will use this instrument to drive SamplingModeling’s The Saxophones software synthesiser, hosted as an Audio Unit plug-in within GarageBand, Apple’s consumer-grade, digital audio workstation, running on Mac OS X. I chose this set-up because it is well balanced in terms of realism, function, and price.
A wind controller can admirably emulate any wind instrument, and indeed just about any musical instrument, if hooked up to an appropriate synthesiser. But my main focus here is on using a wind controller as an electronic facsimile of the saxophone. My intended audience is the adventurous, amateur keyboardists seeking expressive freedom—those who wish to explore beyond the bounds of carefully crafted loops and into the realm of impromptu performances that pour forth from the recesses of the soul.
The focus here is on using the EWI with The Saxophones software synthesiser to emulate the saxophone sound. This is not a book about GarageBand. Indeed, GarageBand is not hospitable to wind controllers, since its built-in software instruments are designed for MIDI keyboards. That is the reason why we need specialty software synthesiser like The Saxophones. But once you understood the basics of how these bits work, you can expand your horizons by experimenting with other wind controllers, other digital audio workstations, and other sounds—string, percussion, or even burping. In any event, I hope that my readers will go on to adopt wind controllers.
In this edition, I have added a chapter about my Android app, Razor ♯♮♠EWI Fingering Chart (http://goo.gl/5r30V6). This app shows fingering charts for the standard-range notes of the four instruments that the Akai EWI emulates: saxophone (Bâ™3 to F6), oboe (Bâ™3 To A6), flute (C4 To C7), and trumpet (E3 to C6). It is a companion app to this book.
— Amen Zwa, Esq.
