The EM Poll

AKAI PROFESSIONAL EWI4000s

Jun 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Scott Wilkinson

           

Shut Up and Play

The EWI4000s feels quite hefty, bespeaking quality construction. It cannot be easily played without a neck strap because both thumbs must be free to move (left thumb on the octave rollers, right thumb on the pitch-bend plates). Unlike the EWI 1000, this model allows air to pass through it, making it feel more like a real wind instrument.

The user interface consists of two 7-segment LED characters on the underside of the instrument. Though they can be quite cryptic, they're better than no display at all, as on the Yamaha WX instruments. Many of the controls are multifunction buttons, which adds to the initial confusion, but I got used to them eventually.

Playing the built-in synth is a joy thanks to its incredibly fast response. According to Akai, the connection between the controller and synth is 14 times faster than MIDI, making it feel like you're playing an acoustic instrument. The synth is so responsive that singing while playing evokes a ring modulator effect, and flutter-tonguing works like a charm. The Key Delay parameter helps reduce glitch notes caused by imprecise fingering; the default value is 7, but I found that 10 worked best for me without slowing things down appreciably.

FIG. 3: UniQuest also offers a simple 16-track MIDI sequencer.

As much as I love the response of the internal synth, I am not so enamored of the factory presets, which start to sound alike after a while. Of course, there are some good ones. My favorites include Judd4000 (a classic Lyle Mays lead sound), Stonehenge (a haunting, flutelike sound with wind noise), WoodNGlue (a chorused double pulse-width modulated sound), and NewWood (a clean clarinet type of sound). Patchman Music offers an alternate bank of sounds that I like much better overall.

Controlling a MIDI sound module feels slightly slower than using the internal synth. I used a Yamaha VL-1m sound module, which is designed for wind control, and I disabled Aftertouch from being sent in response to breath pressure to reduce the amount of transmitted data. Still, it felt just a bit sluggish; for example, some notes in fast scales seemed to get lost via MIDI, whereas they were clearly heard from the internal synth. Decreasing the Key Delay definitely helped, but it also increased the incidence of glitch notes. To be fair, this is a relatively minor difference that should not pose a significant problem.

Compared with the WX5, the EWI4000s is much heavier, and its user interface is better. Aside from the 2-character display, the onboard breath-sensitivity and other physical controls are small knobs that are much easier to manipulate than the set screws and DIP switches on the WX5.

As for the difference between playing the WX5, with its moving keys, and the EWI, with its nonmoving touch-sensitive keys, that's a matter of personal preference. The WX5 feels more like a sax in this regard, while the EWI feels more like a recorder. The same goes for the mouthpiece — the WX5 mouthpiece looks and feels just like a sax mouthpiece, complete with a “reed” that invokes Pitch Bend and other MIDI messages, while the EWI has a hard plastic tube. I definitely prefer the EWI's octave rollers to the WX5's nested octave keys.

On the downside, I found myself missing the WX5's fingering pattern, which lets you play an octave and a half without shifting octave keys. I kept doing this on the EWI and getting an unexpected note. I wish the EWI had a WX fingering mode, though that's probably not possible due to corporate competition and patents.

Bottom Line

Integrating the sound module into the body of the EWI4000s is a big step forward for wind controllers. With the appropriate wireless system, wind players can now freely move around the stage. When you consider that the WX5 with Yamaha's VL-70m sound module lists for more than twice the price of the Akai, the EWI4000s is a very attractive package indeed.

Former EM technical editor Scott Wilkinson loves to make music by blowing.

PRODUCT SUMMARY

AKAI PROFESSIONAL
EWI4000s

MIDI wind controller
$999

RATING PRODUCTS FROM 1 TO 5

PROS: Self-contained synth with lightning-fast response. Solid feel. Much less expensive than WX5/VL-70m package.

CONS: Confusing user interface. Factory sounds are mostly uninspiring. No WX fingering mode.

MANUFACTURER

Akai Professional
www.akaipro.com

PATCHMAN TO THE RESCUE

Patchman Music (www.patchmanmusic.com) specializes in creating synth programs for wind controllers, so it's no wonder the company offers a bank of sounds for the Akai EWI4000s. After some initial problems loading these sounds into the EWI, I finally got the sounds installed and started playing.

What a revelation — each and every sound is beautiful and very responsive. Some are acoustic-instrument simulations, such as Flute, Oboe, and Clarinet, that are more believable than their factory counterparts. (The brass instruments are less realistic than the woodwinds, but brasses are particularly difficult to synthesize.) Of course, they won't fool anyone into thinking they're the real thing, but they are wonderful sounds in their own right.

Then there are the purely synth sounds, such as Blow It Out, D-50 Lead, and Funkatron, which sing their electronic song with exquisite response to breath control. Also included are several excellent synth-bass sounds. Many of the Patchman sounds use the synth's crossfade and breath-activated oscillator-onset functions to vary the sound in a completely natural and — dare I say it? — organic way.

According to Patchman Music founder Matt Traum, the UniQuest editor's slow response to mouse manipulation made it difficult to tweak the sounds to his satisfaction, requiring more time and patience than usual. But it was well worth the effort. If you have an EWI4000s, you owe it to yourself to get a copy of these sounds. For $90, you won't be sorry.