Introduction

Matt Traum 0:02

Welcome to the Aerophone Academy podcast with me , Matt Traum .

Alistair Parnell 0:06

And I'm Alistair Parnell . Join us each month as we discuss the wonderful world of wind controllers and you get the very best information and answers to your questions .

Matt Traum 0:17

The Aerophone Academy podcast is the source for accurate information on wind controllers , so make sure you subscribe to the podcast .

Alistair Parnell 0:26

And while you're at it , why not check out www . isax . academy ?

Matt Traum 0:32

and patchmanmusic . com .

Alistair Parnell 0:35

Welcome back everybody to podcast number 12 . And again , we're pretty excited about this one . But before we start we should introduce our regular co-host , and that's Matt Traum , over there in the United States . Hi , Matt , how are you getting on ?

Matt Traum 0:53

I'm doing great . It's the middle of January here and we've got lots of snow outside and it's cold , yeah . But yeah , it's warm inside here and we're looking forward to this . But yeah , it's warm inside here and we're looking forward to this . We thought for this episode we would talk about sort of our visions for our dream wind controller and maybe some things that could be improved on current wind controllers the way we see it and from feedback that we've gotten from clients and things , and might be an interesting episode going forward on that .

Alistair Parnell 1:21

Yeah , and hopefully it's the sort of thing I'm sure we'll get people wanting to comment and leave their own ideas . So , right before we start , just remember folks , anybody that's listening . You can leave us a voicemail and you can kind of message us . There will be a link down in the description below . And yeah , please do take part . And you know , if we want to , we could do a follow up and talk about some of your ideas for wind synths .

Alistair Parnell 2:02

Okay , so we thought what we would do is , with Matt being perhaps more of the expert on the EVI side and I'm more used to playing the Woodwind style wind synthesizer we thought we'd more or less kind of put this into two halves .

Alistair Parnell 2:20

I'm going to start with some ideas on the woodwind style controller and then Matt will take over with some ideas for the EVI , but we're both going to be talking about both types as well . Ok , so to begin with , I just wanted to make a couple of things really clear . One is that we do see quite a lot of comments and things that people have said online , and I find sometimes that some of their ideas of a perfect wind controller A) might possibly be a little bit impossible . And secondly , we're here talking about what might be a good idea for many people , not just what we personally want , because we've , as Matt said in the introduction , we've had a lot of comments and feedback from people that have played these various wind synths , so I think we're both pretty well placed to comment and make some ideas of the sort of instrument that might develop from what we've currently had , but without being too outlandish and too impossible , is that right , Matt ?

Matt Traum 3:31

I think so . Of course , when a manufacturer makes a wind instrument , they have to please the largest percentage of people that they can . And yeah , we just had some ideas that we could maybe offer . Both Alistair and I have consulted with various companies offered ideas in the past . Yeah , we're available to do such , I suppose , going forward too . So yeah , we're here . Anyway , we can talk about some of those ideas in this episode .

The woodwind style controller

Alistair Parnell 4:04

Okay , let's get into it . We'll start with some ideas for the woodwind type windsynth . Okay , so you know , my first comment is that I feel that for both types of wind synths , you know , I think of them as a very I want to use the word intimate instrument . You know , we hold these instruments and we put them in our mouths or on our lips , and so it's an incredibly intimate instrument . It's something that I feel we want to feel , we want to hold , we want to play . Just like when you pick up a beautiful saxophone , it feels good . It feels , you know , it's an organic instrument that you want to just start playing . And for me , I think that's the starting place . It's producing an instrument where I'm not too worried about the look of it , but the feel of it , the material that it's made of , the balance of the instrument , the feel of the mouthpiece . This is for me something that's so important because it's something that makes us , you know , we're really attracted to this beautiful instrument and pick it up and want to create music with it .

Alistair Parnell 5:32

So , initially , my idea would be that , trying to move away from perhaps a rather light , plasticky feel of an instrument , which some of them have , that kind of feel . Wouldn't it be lovely if it had some kind of maybe wooden finish or a metallic body to it , without it getting too heavy ? I did a little bit of research . You know , a soprano sax is about two to three pounds in weight , and I think the Aerophone AE-30 is about two , two and a half pounds and I have seen people sometimes say well , you know , they feel that's a little bit too heavy . For me, it's part of that feel of a really lovely thing to pick up , just like a guitarist would hold . You know , you see a lot of these guitars . They have these beautiful bodies and beautiful finish to them and I feel that initially would be the thing it wants to be a lovely instrument to pick up .

Matt Traum 6:34

Yeah , I think that's very interesting . You're putting like you say , you put it in your mouth . It is more so than a violin or you know , and those are beautiful instruments . So an instrument should be something you're proud to have and you want to cherish and take care of . And you polish and you know , clean it off and absolutely , when it's a piece of plastic and you know it looks like it , I mean , if it's nothing special , then uh , yeah , that's , it's aesthetics , I guess .

Matt Traum 6:58

Yes , we're talking about here not even function at this point . But uh , yeah , I agree , and I I've . Actually , I had Johan Berglund make me one of his Nu EVIs out of a wood . It's a wood plastic , it's like you know , he 3D prints them , but it was made out of wood fiber and so it actually smells like wood . Lovely . It was an experiment . The material is a little bit weaker and it's not , as it's not like the plastic you know where , know where it's more solid , but it's , it's an experiment and it's interesting . It kind of looks like wood . I had him stain it . Nice , it doesn't have the wood grain per se , but it's my personal instrument and it's something I wanted to have and I have some other instruments that , um , I have gold plated keys like the EWIs a couple EWIs I have . The keys were taken off and gold plated . It's just a little extra touch . Yes , you know something to be proud of and I don't know it's special and I totally understand what you're saying .

Alistair Parnell 7:50

Yeah , absolutely .

Alistair Parnell 7:51

And then , along with that and this is where , if I may , sometimes I think instrument manufacturers perhaps come from very often , perhaps come from very often well , I'm sure there's a budget involved , but there's also a sort of technician or technical side , rather than musical side , perhaps , in some of the early forming of their ideas .

Alistair Parnell 8:16

And one thing that I find is , along with that idea of being a nice instrument to hold

The importance of balance

Alistair Parnell 8:22

, it's absolutely essential that the instrument is well balanced , and this is something I feel that some of the instruments that we have on the market really don't quite do , that it feels like sometimes it might have been a bit of an afterthought , particularly when we have , for instance , the weight of , maybe , batteries that we've got to add to it , and even the weight of whatever cord or connection we're using to either audio or MIDI or whatever . They can all affect the balance of the instrument . And I think that's something that really should be considered from the absolute outset of designing an instrument , whether that's made up in , you know , I don't know lightweight wood or plastic or whatever , but the balance and the relative weight of the instrument , again , that's so important to the overall feel of the instrument . So those are absolutely crucial starting places as far as initial ideas , I think .

Matt Traum 9:29

Yeah , I wonder even if they think about balance , the engineers , when they're designing it . I would say maybe some don't even consider that . I do know the Akais , like the EWI USB actually has weights put in- dead weights- you know, pieces of metal that are in there to kind of make it feel more stable in your hands so it doesn't move around so much when you're moving your fingers . I actually took them out of my EWI USB . I just prefer it lighter and I'm using only three fingers , so it's not such a big deal . But they thought about that . I think that is that the only one that had . Oh no , Yamaha WX11 had a weight in the end of the horn as well . Of course you could remove it if you wanted to , but it's inside . Yes , just to add a little extra mass there . I can't think of any other wind controllers at the moment that have weights in them .

Alistair Parnell 10:16

And then going on

Keys - Touch or mechanical?

Alistair Parnell 10:17

to you know the mechanics of the keys . Now you know , I think things are going to fall very much into two camps here . We've got the touch keys of the Akai line of instruments and then you know , people like Yamaha and Roland have gone for a more kind of mechanical key operation . Having played both of those types extensively , now , personally I would probably say that the touch type keys that aren't moving just feel more solid and they're not going to create any type of additional noise coming from the key mechanism . If the key mechanism is going to be a mechanical key , if the key mechanism is going to be a mechanical key , then I think it's probably going to add a fair amount of weight .

Alistair Parnell 11:09

If it's going to be done properly with a sort of lever and spring type operation like we would have potentially , you know , on an acoustic saxophone or something , I can understand that some people who have come from a saxophone would find the touch key system pretty tricky to get hold of . I also was in the same boat when I first got the Akai 4000 . It took me quite a while to get used to that key mechanism . It was worth it in the end , but I can see that for some people that is something where they're going to have to commit quite a bit of time to get used to that system . So I could go either way on that , either a really good , solid key mechanism . The key mechanism that I think would potentially work is , I don't know if you know , I'm sure you're aware Matt, Roland make a Roland accordion .

Matt Traum 12:06

Yes , yeah , the physical modeling synthesizer inside of it . The V-A ccordion , I think it's called . That's the V accordion , very interesting instrument .

Alistair Parnell 12:14

Yeah , and , by the way , if anyone wants to check out an incredible exponent of that , there's a fantastic player that plays the V-A ccordion , Ludovic Beier , b-e-i-e-r . If you check him out , he is a phenomenal player .

Alistair Parnell 13:02

Now it strikes me that the mechanism of those touch keys on that accordion , on the button type of that accordion , has a really very nice action to it . Just one of the thoughts I had that you know it is possible to make a lovely action where it feels solid and the movement is very reassuring . You know when you're pressing it , you know when you're not pressing it . It's just comfortable , weighty enough , without inhibiting our finger movement . So again , that's a tricky one . I think the actual action of the keys is something that the jury's still out a little bit with that one .

Matt Traum 13:33

It really boils down to personal preference . I've talked to professional players , we've talked to Tom Scott and we've talked to Bob Mintzer . And between the two , Tom does not want to play the EWI type sensors and Bob Mintzer does , that's right , you know , he just loves the EWI with the touch sensors . So we can't really say one's better than the other . There's pluses and minuses to each type of system . And so we were talking originally about aesthetics and now we're talking about ergonomics , right ? And so I want to mention also we will get into some of these other um . There's a whole load of um , I guess mostly Chinese type EWIs , that are either copycat or their , their own , you know version of an EWI . Yeah , I would say most of them have touch sensors . I don't know , I could be wrong on that . I don't know if any of them have actual keys that move , but I won't mention any names in particular , but I actually have one of this certain model .

Matt Traum 14:26

They actually put on touch sensors on the top keys and then the side keys , like on an EWI 4000 or 5000 , they have those side keys that you hit with your right hand finger there , those two side keys , they made those switches . You know where you physically have to touch them and push them in . So you have the top keys being touch sensors and then the side keys are physical switches that require a whole lot more force than just touching the top keys and you're supposed to adjust the force of your fingers depending on what note you're playing . I just found that to be a really huge oversight on the design . You either decide on one or the other , but you don't mix and match . You know between the two . Now I can see maybe having octave keys being buttons and then the tops being touch sensor . Possibly that would work . You know a mixture there . Yes , but boy , I can't play that instrument . I have it here . No , I just . There's no way you can adjust the force that's required to play smoothly .

Alistair Parnell 15:22

This reminds me of the similar situation . You know I'm teaching here saxophone and clarinet , piano , and particularly with acoustic saxophones and pianos . You know we also see quite a lot of shall we say , you know , not so well-made instruments . Of course they attract our attention or they attract some customers' attention because they are a much cheaper price . So many times , in fact pretty much every time , this has happened .

Alistair Parnell 15:52

If a pupil's come to me with a clarinet that they've bought a sort of very kind of cheap , poor quality model , they're either going to realise within a very short space of time they should have spent a little bit more money and bought a decent instrument , or , unfortunately , they're going to struggle with that instrument and that potentially is going to put them off that instrument , potentially for life . So it's the same sort of idea . If you go for one of these cheaper instruments , it might work for just what you want and maybe you just want to kind of fool around with something for a little while . But if you are thinking about taking it a little bit further and committing time to properly learning to play that instrument , it's definitely worth considering getting a decent quality instrument . If you're going to put that time into it , then start off with a decent quality one right .

Matt Traum 16:46

Yeah , we've talked about it in previous episodes that you know . Consult with somebody who knows what they're talking about . You know they can contact me . They can contact you or go online and see what the reviews are of certain instruments from people that actually play . Yeah , there's people that are just going to buy it as a novelty and they don't really care . You know , they're just going to fiddle around and it's a , it's a toy . But if you're , if you're serious and you want to make music , and certainly if you're a professional , you need to seriously consider getting something that's properly designed .

Matt Traum 17:18

There's wind controllers out there that they didn't have key de-glitching in them . They just the designers , didn't understand that you have to de-glitch the keys . You know , if you're going from B to a low D or something and you have to put six fingers down at once , you have to have a de-glitch algorithm in there so that you don't get six notes in between that change , you know , because your fingers are not going to land exactly the same . If you analyze it . There's always going to be millisecond differences . Yes , and the engineers didn't understand .

Matt Traum 17:47

There's supposed to be a key de-glitching and there's a certain time value for that de-glitch . That has been proven over decades what you want to use , and Nyle Steiner was one of the pioneers . He understood that and he's experimented and found the optimal time for that and ways to do it . There's different ways to de-glitch keys , also technically speaking , so it's tricky . Yeah , you got to watch . There's a whole lot of instruments out there for a few hundred dollars that really they're horrible . And yeah , you're better off saving . Save up for a few months and get something better . You'll be much happier overall .

Alistair Parnell 18:23

And moving on to the other aspect of that is very often those instruments probably don't have a proper bite sensor . And that takes me on to my next kind of item on my shopping list . Again , we need a mouthpiece that feels good .

The mouthpiece

Alistair Parnell 18:40

You know , as woodwind players we're used to this sort of hard rubber mouthpiece sometimes metal , but again that is something that we put it in our mouths . We want it to feel fairly similar to what we're used to and also it has to have a nice material , it has to be made of a nice material , and so that kind of hard rubber idea I think would be certainly worth looking at . And the other issue that we have , because we definitely want to have a bite sensor , in my opinion and I do think that the Roland setup for the bite sensor is pretty good I think that we're lacking a little bit of adaptability for the amount of different embouchures that we get in , particularly single reed playing . I do know that for some of the jazz players that play with a little bit more of a relaxed embouchure , some of them have felt they get a little bit less control than perhaps someone with a slightly firmer embouchure . So ideally that would need looking at , I think something where there's some kind of adjustable or selectable reed strength , just the piece of plastic that covers the sensor inside . That would make a difference to some people and also being able to accommodate a wider range of embouchures . And I guess that comes down to the sort of mouthpiece set up the way the tip opening , what we call the tip opening .

Alistair Parnell 20:17

As saxophone players , some players come from a pretty wide tip opening , and when they play something like a woodwind controller , if that doesn't feel natural to them , it can take them quite a while to get used to that . Absolutely . We do have to realise that these instruments are an instrument in their own right . We don't want to come to them thinking you know , well , this doesn't feel exactly like my saxophone , well , guess what it's not going to . You have to do some practice and work on it to get the very best out of it . But in terms of being flexible , then I think there's still some room for improvement on the mouthpiece setup .

Matt Traum 20:56

As far as the bite sensor , I think it is very important , especially for anybody who's a moderate skill level or a professional . Of course you have to have a bite sensor . There are wind controllers that don't have bite sensors the more inexpensive ones . I understand that , but it's critical to be able to do vibrato and control the vibrato and bending with your mouth . It's just expected when you're coming off of a clarinet or a saxophone or a wind instrument . A lot of them are adjustable and they have been adjustable for decades . The EWIs and the WX series all had ways to adjust sensitivity of the bite sensor . I would say the Roland AE-20 and AE-30s the latest models from Roland are exceptional in this case . You can set the curves of the response of the bite sensor and all the other sensors too . They're amazingly adjustable . So they've really gone the extra mile to give the option there for the musician to adjust the curve . Do you want it to be more responsive at the beginning of the bend or do you want it to be less responsive and then more as you dig in ? All those things are adjustable in addition to the sensitivity and the zero point of the bite and things like that . So as far as adjusting the bite sensor , the AE-20 and AE-30 are far superior to any other wind controller out there at this point .

Alistair Parnell 22:12

I absolutely agree . But you do need to know what you're doing with those settings . And just for a little plug at this point , that's what my iSax Academy does a lot of and my YouTube channel explains quite a lot of those settings . It is a little bit of a sort of minefield picking your way through those settings , but if you want any help on that , at least check out my YouTube channel for that . You've got an Aerophone but you could do with some help . Getting information from the internet or finding a great teacher just isn't happening , and you know how important it is to make the best possible start . The Aerophone Basics course from the iSax Academy has more than 25 step-by-step video lessons with downloadable PDFs and backing tracks . Let me show you how to become the Aerophone player you want to be . For more information , visit www . isax . academy .

Alistair Parnell 23:15

Now , moving on , along with the mouthpiece and this is my one area that I would consider , area that I would consider , let's say , a little bit sort of you know it's a possibility , but this may be a little way off . There's a guy , Rudy Verpaele- I'm sorry , I don't know how to pronounce his name . Anyway , he makes that really nice Respiro software . Now he just as a kind of side note here . He has been working on a mouthpiece that actually senses the oral cavity inside the mouth . Now I won't go into this yet for too much detail , but the possibility of a woodwind player being able to shape the sound and shape the parameters of a synthesizer by the internal shape of the mouth , which is actually the way that our acoustic horns work , then that is something that could be very , very exciting . So that that's something that's sort of parked there on the side , but that is something that could be , you know , very , very interesting from a woodwind point of view I agree .

Matt Traum 24:25

I think that's a really cool thing that , to give credit , Chris Graham is actually the guy that started that whole project , I believe . Oh , yes , you're right , I remember talking to Chris about this , uh , at least 15 years ago , maybe longer . He's been working on it and he's he's made prototypes and you know . But we've been waiting a long , long time , years and years , for this and I would love to see it come out . You know , actually officially , yes , but I don't know when that's going to happen . I hope it does .

Alistair Parnell 24:53

I mean it would really add to that thing of your own personal sound , because you would literally be shaping the , if you like , the harmonics of the sound by the way your vocal tract is working , and that's something that could be absolutely incredible . I'm sure it will happen . As yet it's a little bit over the horizon , but let's see .

The octave keys

Alistair Parnell 25:21

Looking at the forums with wind synthesizers , the one thing that people , I think , have the most difficulty with is changing octaves . You agree ?

Matt Traum 25:30

Yep , that always seems to be one of the main questions . People will say oh , I'm having problems changing octaves , no matter what wind controller it is , it could be EWI or WX or Aerophone . That's always the issue . Now , with an acoustic instrument , you only have what ? One octave button on a saxophone mostly , and then you change octaves with other means , other fingerings and embouchure . I guess , yeah , on a trumpet it's all embouchure , you know . Yes , yeah , it's . Uh , that can be the hardest thing to get smooth transitions and I would say that's the thing that requires the most practice , would you ? Would you agree with that ?

Alistair Parnell 26:04

Yeah , absolutely , but I think this is something that perhaps the manufacturers could experiment with some possible other ideas . You know , ultimately , the way the hand posture works on certainly a woodwind type controller . We are not used to moving the sort of point of contact with our left thumb too much . Again , it's something that we can practice . So I think it's realising that we don't want to be shifting that left thumb around too much at a time .

Alistair Parnell 26:36

I did have an idea whether something along the lines of a sort of smoother like a glide strip on the back of the thumb . Now this would have to have some kind of arrangement of tactile feedback . Exactly , I was thinking something along the lines of a sort of like a guitar would have the fret points . You know , something you could easily slide over but you'd know that you'd crossed over from one octave to the other . You know that was just a little idea , something along those lines or something where the texture changes underneath your thumb so you can feel where it is . That's something that does still need working on , I think , to improve for everybody that plays those instruments . It's one of the main kind of pain points , I believe , for woodwind style playing .

Matt Traum 27:28

Yeah , I agree , Moving the thumb is kind of unnatural . And what happens when you have to jump two octaves or three octaves ? Yes , Then you got to jump and you can almost do it with a pressure sensor that actually moves and has notches in it . Yes , Instead of moving your thumb physically , you're just pressing , but you're feeling some sort of a feedback . That would work . Yes , that way you don't actually have to slide your thumb around . I wonder you know ? Yeah , that's pretty difficult to slide your thumb amongst what ? Four octave buttons and the center .

Alistair Parnell 27:59

Yes , I guess for me the Aerophone I quite like the setup of the octaves . The only thing I don't like is the centre point of where you rest your thumb . If you're going from one octave up to one octave down , you've actually got to move quite a long way . I just wish they'd had those keys placed closer together to be able to go from the top octave system to the bottom octave system . It's like everything else you practice , you can get a little bit better at it , but I do think that's something that's important to address .

Matt Traum 28:28

Yeah , I don't think that has to be such a wide spacing . In fact , you could put your thumbs . Really , that center could be very small . Yes , and you could almost feel both of the octaves with the thumb , exactly . Just move your thumb slightly and boom , boom , you've got three octaves range right there . Lean one side , yeah , yeah .

The menu system

Alistair Parnell 28:52

Okay then . I think from the point of view of the menu system . You know we've got to have a menu system and we do want settings to be able to control . But please , please , do not have a menu system where we've got something like three or four hundred steps to go from the start of the menu to the end of the menu . This seems to be a rather basic thing . Why can't we start off with , say , three or four menu headings and then we can go into each one of those headings more directly ? That is something that , as you can probably manage , really frustrates me .

Matt Traum 29:33

Well , what you could do is when you're in the editing menu mode , let's say on the Aerophone . You're in there , hold down the menu and just hit a top key and it just selects your general areas to go . Like here's your MIDI settings , here's your , whatever you know . You could have this selectable headings and just push a key on the top of the instrument and boom , you're right there .

Alistair Parnell 29:53

Absolutely . you just need four or five headings and , like your camera , you also need a heading where you have your own shortcuts to the settings you very often want to go to . Yeah , it's very simple . We've got all of these settings we can use , but sometimes it takes so long to step through all of those settings . We don't want to be doing that . We want the easiest , most intuitive way of getting around those settings .

Power options

Alistair Parnell 30:28

Okay ,

Alistair Parnell 30:28

I know people kind of moan about the battery thing . I think you've got to have a battery option . Personally , I prefer the replaceable batteries . I'm not such a big fan of the rechargeable batteries . I know people like that as well . But you know again , that's just a kind of personal thing that

Matt Traum 30:48

I think t here are rechargeable batteries that have become more common and sort of uh standardised in a way like the the battery I don't know if it's the one that's in the Akai EWI SOLO and EWI 5000 . You know it's that one battery that's , I don't know , maybe four inches long by a three quarters of an inch wide . It kind of becomes , you know , like the triple a battery is . You know it's like that's because there's so many rechargeable type batteries , shapes and voltages and amperages and all . But if they can settle in and to some very common one that you can buy anywhere for the next 20 years , 30 years , and that's okay , I think that's fine if it's easily replaceable .

Matt Traum 31:26

I would like to see a cradle and instrument makers can make this cradle that's a floor stand . You put it on the stage , you plug that in and then when you put the horn in the cradle it charges the instrument while it's sitting there , so it's always charged and ready to go .

Alistair Parnell 31:38

Yeah , just like your electric toothbrush , right ?

Matt Traum 31:40

Exactly , or your phone or whatever you have . That just seems common sense to me . Yes , but I'm not against having a rechargeable in there if it's a common type and it's easily replaceable , not where you have to take the whole instrument apart . Yeah , you don't want to get stuck in two years all of a sudden they don't make the battery in that size and that's catastrophic . That's not a good thing .

Alistair Parnell 32:06

Just to cover the next section , for me I do like the instrument to have a built-in synth . And for me personally , the built-in synth on the Roland Aerophones, I'm perfectly happy with what we've got there as a built-in option , with those sounds for me great . And to be able to just plug a cable in or a pair of headphones and play some of those really fantastic sounds , that's great . And of course they're editable and you can add your own sounds to user banks and so on , so on . But what that kind of leads me to then is the fact

A pedal board - Cable options - Editors

Alistair Parnell 32:41

and this is where maybe I'm departing a little bit from what we have on the market so far and this is the idea that we don't really want to have three different cables connecting our Aerophone to whatever . So you know , because potentially you could have a power cable , you co uld have a MIDI cable or a USB cable . You've also got an audio cable . You've got sometimes three cables hanging off of this thing .

Matt Traum 33:12

And even USB, too .

Alistair Parnell 33:14

Yeah , we don't want to have a bunch of cables running to our instruments . So my kind of idea I've not heard anybody talking , perhaps , about this . And it sort of brings me back a little bit to the WX7 that I had to begin with . Okay , so why can't we just have one cable going to our wind synth that carries power and you know it connects to a little output box or something , where then that box has your MIDI or audio , whatever you want to connect it to , and it provides power . So everything is in one cable , nice and easy to connect and disconnect . We don't have to worry about dropouts with wireless if we don't want to , we've got a nice connection there .

Matt Traum 34:05

That kind of goes back to the uh Yamaha WX series . They have that special WX extension cable it's called , and that , yes , that carried MIDI and power to the wind controller but the MIDI signal out of the wind controller and then there's a , either the VL70 or , you know the BT7 battery box . It would take apart the signal , then you'd have your MIDI . I see what you're saying is and also put in audio . I suppose you could put in like a connection to a computer too , like USB , into that , and have it just carry everything and have it demultiplexed in the little converter box . Yes , yes , use a standard type cable , like an Ethernet cable or something , or USB . Something that's standard , not not like Yamaha did with their proprietary cable or Akai did with their original EWI , where it had that special cable that you can't get anymore and now it's a mess .

Alistair Parnell 34:54

But for me that wouldn't go to a little box or whatever . That would go to a pedal board now .

Alistair Parnell 35:03

So here's my next step . For me anyway , I would want a sort of optional floor pedal board where you have your umbilical cord go straight to your pedal board . Your pedal board then has outputs for your front of house or going to your computer . It would have CV gate going out, USB-C . Power would go to the pedal board and then that would power your wind synthesizer .

Alistair Parnell 35:34

On that pedal board you'd have a nice big display that would give you information like this is the sound you're using and this is the key that you're currently in . And there'd be a volume pedal and there'd be a series of pedals that you could program to do either scene changes or turn on and turn off effects .

Alistair Parnell 35:58

So this would be your kind of main board that's in front of you . Because the other thing about you know , when we play a keyboard we've got that nice big screen in front of us . We can see exactly what's going on . Unfortunately , when we're playing a wind synthesizer we can look at the back and take the thing out of our mouths and kind of look at the menu , yeah , but that's not great . If we've got something that's there in front of us just like a guitarist would use . That would be my idea of heaven to have . And it seems a pretty simple thing to do . Get a nice solid pedal board with a screen on some basic foot pedal functions supplying power , audio , USB to the wind synthesizer . That to me would be a really great setup .

Matt Traum 36:47

I agree . I think , maybe the manufacturers of wind controllers should come up with a standard maybe Yamaha , Akai , whatever other company and have a standard and they could all use that same thing . It's almost like MIDI , you know , but uh , because the problem is it's such a small market . So if one company does it , that's for them to develop a pedal like that is going to be hard to recoup their investment R&D . But yeah , if they could get together with some kind of standard it doesn't have to be that fancy , but yeah , I think I could see that happening . I would put also a large display on it so you can see it from standing and looking at the floor .

Alistair Parnell 37:23

Absolutely yes , that's right .

Matt Traum 37:27

Maybe a sustain pedal there that sustains breath , like the old Yamaha MFC2 had ? Great , yeah . The reason I asked for the sustain is because there's many times when I'm playing my wind controller and my wind controller takes two hands . You've got your left hand thumb , you know and then your right hand and you really can't play a note and take a hand off and then adjust the volume of your amp without stopping and playing . So I would say have a little sustain pedal that sustains breath and bend and the note , and then you can take your hand off and make your adjustments . I think that's important .

Alistair Parnell 37:56

And a mic input for your saxophones . So that's got built in FX in it , just like a kind of you know a looper pedal or whatever would have . Again , that doesn't seem rocket science to me . It seems pretty straightforward . And how useful would that be for a tremendous amount of players , both professional and amateurs , if they want to get a really good setup . Of course , from there, if you've got the output , then without an extra cable to your wind synthesizer , then you go to your iPad or your computer . That's where you've got all of that SWAM instruments and you've got your sampled instruments , your Native Instruments , whatever you want to use . That would then go out to your external sound production model , whatever you're using for that .

Matt Traum 38:47

So this idea could be incorporated with MIDI guitars as well . I suppose they're very similar in what their needs would be , so Roland could be in there with Akai and Yamaha and they could come up with some kind of alternate controller interface for guitars and wind controllers and maybe some other things that I can't even think of .

Alistair Parnell 39:05

And , of course , they've got the Boss , the whole Boss connection , you know . So they're the masters of building foot pedals . Yeah , that to me would be , you know , the ideal thing .

Alistair Parnell 39:22

I've got two other last requests . Number one is we definitely want a decent either handheld device audio editor for the synth . Ideally a computer editor would be good , and I don't mind using some kind of wireless connection for that . I'm not a big fan of using Bluetooth for MIDI and stuff on gigs , but in terms of just being able to quickly

The case and a stand

Alistair Parnell 39:49

connect your phone or something to make a quick edit , ideally a nice graphical interface on a nice big screen on the computer , that would be brilliant .

Alistair Parnell 39:59

And then finally , but again it seems to be kind of overlooked . Please , we need a decent , quality , hard case . It's an instrument that we take on gigs with us . We don't want to have to have it in one of these soft pouches that someone's just going to sit on and break the thing . We need a decent , quality , hard case and a stand , a dedicated stand that we put the thing on either at home or on gigs . And again , that doesn't seem to be rocket science . Just give us a nice hard plastic case and let us look after this thing how it deserves to be looked after .

Alistair Parnell 40:41

That's basically my shopping list , I mean . I know it's quite long , but I feel like a lot of those things aren't a great big shot ahead of where we are now . It's just bringing together some of these ideas and the manufacturers just thinking , okay , this is more what people are after , and certainly to put us into that category as a real professional quality instrument . That's what I'd personally like to see .

Matt Traum 41:07

Yeah , you're right about the case I was thinking about it , and the only case I can think of is that Lyricon had its own case the synth and the horn .

Alistair Parnell 41:16

WX7?

Matt Traum 41:17

WX7 .

Alistair Parnell 41:18

Had a nice case .

Matt Traum 41:20

Yeah , it came with it . It was included , yeah . And then there was no case for the WX11 ever made . The WX5 had a case that they offered , but it was an afterthought and you had to buy it extra . It's like , well geez , you know it should be included . The gig bag that comes with the AE-30 is pretty nice . It's pretty heavily padded . The AE-20 gig bag's pretty light . It doesn't offer a huge amount of protection .

Alistair Parnell 41:43

I think they're absolutely fine . If you're going , for instance , in your own car or something , then fine . But if you were going on any kind of tour bus or taking it on a flight or something , I think you'd need to have something a bit more solid .

Matt Traum 41:56

Right on . Yep .

The EVI type controller

Alistair Parnell 42:05

So that's my shopping list . What about your ideas , then , for your ideal EVI , Matt ? I know we've talked about some things that probably apply to both of them , but you must have some ideas for the EVI side .

Matt Traum 42:16

Yeah , I think a lot of it carries over . I'm a trumpet player and when you say EVI that's electronic valve instrument or an electronic brass instrument or trumpet , euphonium , french horn , whatever- a three-valve type instrument . Yeah , I just would like to see an EVI put out commercially . I know Johan Bergland is doing a great job covering that to some degree , but he can only make so many and he's a small business . I understand . Great instrument , by the way, and I do sell them here in the US at Patchman Music . If you're ever looking for a NuRAD or a NuEVI , I get them in fairly regularly, but fairly slowly . So if you're interested in one , email me and we can talk about it .

Matt Traum 43:02

But, yeah, Akai made the EVI1000 when that first set of commercial wind controllers came out in 1987 . They had their EWI1000 and then they had the EVI1000 with the same sound module for either one- different cable , which even made it more difficult . You know you have a certain cable that went to the EWI and a different one that went to the EVI , and now , of course , how many years later , we're all having trouble . You can't find the cables anymore . So you have to resort to putting new connectors on and a different cable , and you know that's expensive and time-consuming to do .

Matt Traum 43:31

But , yeah , I'd like to see a nice EVI-type instrument . I love the canister . I've played with all the EWIs with brass fingerings . You know the system that I've kind of helped incorporate into the Roland Aerophones . All the Aerophones have my brass fingering system in there . That's based on Nyle Steiner's original EVI fingering system for brass players . And then Akai has had them since the EWI 4000s and the EWI USB all on up . They've all had the brass fingering option in there .

Matt Traum 44:01

And there's a couple other instruments that have been made . Steve Marshall over in Australia worked with myself and James Morrison , who's a brass superstar over there in Australia . He's an amazing talent and he made the MDT , the Morrison Digital Trumpet , for a few years and those are no longer in production . So basically right now all you have is the Berglund as far as brass players , or finding a used EVI , which again , that's something I specialize in and I always I usually always have one on my used gear page at patchmanm usic . com and I rebuild and restore EVIs for people .

Matt Traum 44:37

But it'd be nice to see an EVI that has a nice rounded , shapely , attractive body to it . That's , you know . I mean , the EVIs that Berglund's making are wonderful but they're kind of flat , you know , and nice to see something that's curvy and maybe a little more beautiful to look at . It's certainly functional , there's no problem there . Again , a stand would be nice with the charging system in it .

Matt Traum 45:00

Maybe with the canister on the EVI you could tilt it a little bit to the left because the left hand is controlling that . Then the valve part of the body , of course , is being controlled with the right hand , so you could have them offset a little bit and make it a little easier ergonomically so you're not bending your wrists kind of unnaturally . A nice soft mouthpiece with a bite sensor is , of course , important . The EVIs by Berglund, and the later ones by Nyle Steiner have a little embouchure sensor as well . It's a little piece of metal that kind of flips up and it touches your upper lip , and pressing that against your lip can send a MIDI controller , and that MIDI controller can be mapped to maybe a growl effect in the patch or vibrato or whatever you choose . So , um , that's kind of an important feature that's already been established , I think . So you want to have breath , bite and embouchure sensing in the mouthpiece .

Alistair Parnell 45:52

And Matt , while you're talking about that , what's your impression on people that have come from trumpet or whatever ? Are they making that transition onto that type of a mouthpiece fairly

Players coming from acoustic trumpet

Alistair Parnell 46:06

easily , or is that feeling very strange to them ?

Matt Traum 46:09

Most are, yeah . It does take time to learn , uh , because you're blowing and there's no air that goes through the horn , so you're letting a little air come out of the corners of your mouth , which is against what you've been taught your whole career not to do that . But you have to do that with these instruments . But there's advantages to that . Whereas the moisture doesn't go through the horn , it doesn't collect in there and cause troubles . So you're just kind of letting air out of the corners . When you blow . There's a sensor in there . Most people get used to it . There's some that prefer like a flat mouthpiece , like Judd Miller . He's actually taken off that rubber piece and he's had Nyle modify it with a flat . Oh , maybe , uh was what was that ? A two inches square piece of plastic that just has a hole in the center and you just put your mouth up to it and blow and kind of let the air come out of the corners of the mouth , like on the Crumar EVI that was made back in 1980 . But of course you lose the sensing of the vibrato and there's no embouchure on there and you would do your vibrato with your right hand thumb in that case . So some people prefer a flat surface . Judd even has, in fact I have a couple of his EVIs that I purchased from him and I they're kind of in my collection where he took a trumpet mouthpiece and had the , the rim of it , cut off and that's glued onto the flat panel of the , the flat mouthpiece with the hole , so it's a trumpet mouthpiece rim on there . That feels , of course , just like a trumpet then . That was his solution back then .

Matt Traum 47:30

As far as Berglund's instruments , they're wonderful , but I would love to see them at some point integrate the inside , the internal circuit boards . If you look inside those instruments they're extremely complicated and there's all kinds of jumper wires and things to make it all work . You've got the display and you've got octave rollers and different wireless boards and things that are all kind of connected . It'd be nice to see that all integrated onto a hopefully one circuit board . That could be made easier for him . He could maybe produce them a little more quickly that way if it were in that design , and also the reliability I think would go up as well .

Matt Traum 48:03

Over the years , though , Berglund's made some nice advances , incorporating higher quality rollers . The octave rollers are really nice now , beautiful , and compared to the old Steiner ones that Nyle Steiner was making , they were kind of noisy and loose and they worked fine . But they just felt like you made a run to the hardware store and put this instrument together in some ways . So he's done some nice things to improve those . And also the octave canister . He's using a ball bearing now so it feels real tight and smooth . It's very predictable , it's wonderful .

Alistair Parnell 48:34

Like I was saying earlier , that whole feel thing is so important and if those improvements are being made , that's a big bonus , that's great .

Matt Traum 48:44

I think Nyle's design with the canister and the way it's set up , with the three trill keys to help with alternate fingerings for certain note transitions , I think all that's perfect . I really don't have any problems with that . I would just like to see it made again commercially in a nice beautiful body and you know , maybe wood would be cool or some cool sparkly emerald green bodies like really cool Ferrari cars , how they have those gorgeous body paints .

The accelerometer

Matt Traum 49:13

Another thing we didn't really mention yet was the accelerometer in the AE-30 . That's the thing that senses the tilt and the elevation of the instrument . The AE-30 has that . There's one other , maybe two other wind controllers that have that . It's a tiny little chip . I mean , a a few dollars , very small . You put it in there and that just opens up all kinds of possibilities . On the AE-30 it I think it gives you three more MIDI uh controllers that you can , you know ranges of expression . So you have you can tilt the horn to the left to generate a varying level of a MIDI controller that you can assign to whatever number you want and the curve of it . You can tilt to the right for a second one and then , as you lift the horn up above the horizon or below the horizon . That's a third controller . So that little tiny chip in there really adds a whole lot of expression . So I would , I would encourage makers to put those in .

Alistair Parnell 50:08

Yeah , the the other part of just sort of winding back the history a little bit . You know , in the right hand thumb on the wind instrument controller , I always liked the Akai kind of touch plate thing . That was very good . I actually felt that the AE-10 , that

More controller options

Alistair Parnell 50:26

little joystick thing- that to me used to work pretty well . I didn't like the feel of it . I thought it could have just been a nicer shaped key but that had this kind of four way lever thing going on . I actually preferred that over the- you know, we have this kind of touch thumb pad on the AE-30- which is fine and it's useful, but I preferred that other system on the AE-10 .

Alistair Parnell 50:53

Yes , certainly , having you know the more types and ways we can control the instrument . Personally , I don't use the accelerometer very much , really only for one reason , and that is because , as it's set at default , the movement has to be rather exaggerated and again you start to get into some rather weird contortions to fully change that . But just as we've said before , you can alter that and you can make it be that the movement is much less and that then starts to work and become more usable . So there are certainly a lot of possibilities there with some of those extra controllers .

Bluetooth

Matt Traum 51:37

And I have some other things that I would like to bring up . One is the Bluetooth thing . It always seems to be a problem for a lot of people trying to get your Bluetooth connected to your phone or whatever iPad . I'd like to see a more reliable form of Bluetooth . Maybe it'll happen eventually . That's got lower latency and it's easier to configure . I'm sure you would agree with that . You've helped a lot of people with that issue .

Alistair Parnell 51:59

Absolutely . Sure .

Matt Traum 52:00

For any wind controller that has a built-in synth , it'd be nice to have a wireless audio option maybe built in . I don't think they're terribly complicated to do . It could be just an analog type system . I'd like to see an audio player

Audio playback - Looper

Matt Traum 52:15

built into wind controllers that you could load in MP3s or WAVs or AIFF files for backing tracks . There's a whole lot of musicians that use wind controllers as a solo and they'll play tracks off their phone or laptop . It'd be kind of cool to have a respectable size amount of memory inside the instrument that's dedicated to the audio file playback . That's like a no brainer . It seems like you know you can buy audio players for $10 . Yeah , so that would be simple matter . But that'd be pretty cool to have , you know , 100 audio files on there and you go out and play by yourself with an amplifier . A built-in looper might be nice , an audio looper . That's a lot of fun and impressive . I don't think that would be too hard to do .

Matt Traum 52:56

Going back to the Aerophone , you know the key buttons have been improved by Roland over the years . They've made some improvements and it's pretty nice now . I still think they could be improved maybe a little bit more and made a little more smooth . I don't know . I think they could be maybe designed to require a little more touch . They seem kind of light to me , maybe . Do you think ?

Alistair Parnell 53:26

Yeah , the action , as it were ? Yes , I agree , I think , yes , a little bit more resistance , I think , would actually make you feel a little bit more positive with the fingering . So , yes .

Matt Traum 53:30

And that would be on the top , though , and to the opposite , I would say , on the bottom , on the octave keys , they feel a little bit difficult to push . I would also make those maybe lighter in touch . What do you think about that ? I'm curious .

Alistair Parnell 53:36

Yeah , I've heard people say that it's not something I've struggled with at all . I've always felt that that's okay . I do remember initially when I got my Akai 4000 , I got quite a kind of sore thumb and I realized I was basically just pushing down too hard , harder than I needed to . And again, I sometimes think it's just a case of realizing what the technique requires . It needs a little bit of thought as to the way you've got to manipulate keys like that . For me personally , it's never been a problem on the Roland .

Matt Traum 54:15

As far

More sound options

Matt Traum 54:16

as the Roland AE-20 , AE-30 , I would love to see a Mac and PC-based editor . Boy, wouldn't that be great , oh , yeah , oh yeah . I know we have it on the phone and the iPad , but I would just like to see a screen with more parameters and it would make editing so much easier . And also in any wind controller that has a built-in synth that's sample based . Maybe have an import of your own key maps , like in a Sound font format or the Kontakt is pretty popular these days , yeah , or even the old Akai key maps , things like that . Just something standard where we could bring in our own key maps of an English horn or whatever user samples , samples you know .

Alistair Parnell 54:53

Lovely, yes .

Matt Traum 54:54

On the AE-20 and 30 , I'd like to see , maybe , that hole . You know there's an air relief hole inside the mouthpiece . I believe it's up towards the top of the mouthpiece , so the water tends to just collect and puddle there in the mouthpiece . Yeah , maybe if you put the hole down lower it would drain out the end of the horn , like it maybe should .

Alistair Parnell 55:14

Sure , sure .

Matt Traum 55:16

Of course it would be messy , but when I play my Aerophone 30 , I usually get a collection of water in there in the mouthpiece and I have to turn it over and it just kind of dumps out .

Matt Traum 55:24

Maybe on the AE-20/30

Thumb levers and palm keys

Matt Traum 55:26

, the right-hand thumb lever could be moved slightly more towards the thumb . What do you think about that ?

Alistair Parnell 55:39

Yeah , it's too high . And going back to the balance issue , you know we see this on acoustic instruments that the right hand thumb rest really needs to be adjustable and movable . It's like that on most saxophones and on quite a lot of clarinets . It's adjustable and that's because it affects the balance , it affects your hand posture , and so you're absolutely right . The thumb position on the AE-30 is actually a little high . If it was a little bit lower it would improve the balance . It needs to come down by about an inch . But if you brought that down by an inch there's no way you would reach that pitch bend lever . That also needs to be repositioned . So the two things there could be , better placed , in my opinion . Make both of them perhaps be on some kind of slidable plate where you could adjust exactly where they fit so they both move in tandem . That's my idea anyway .

Matt Traum 56:36

And we're talking about the right-hand thumb on that instrument .

Alistair Parnell 56:39

The right-hand thumb , yes , yes .

Matt Traum 56:40

Okay . And then I've had some people ask about those palm keys on the left hand on the AE-20/30 , that some of those palm keys could be perhaps made a little bit longer so they extend out farther . So you don't have to . You know they reach your palm , so you don't have to pull your hand in so far to actually trigger those keys . What do you think about that ? Is that something you found to be a problem ?

Alistair Parnell 57:03

Yeah , definitely . Yeah , it feels to me that there wasn't too much thought put into that . You know they've included them , but the actual ergonomics of that is it's not easy . Personally , I don't really use them very much because you've got the octave key so you can just , you know , switch in other octaves . So , yeah , I think that is a weak spot . To be honest , they could have been better , better shaped . Again , everybody's hand is different , so some people are going to find it , you know , probably better than others , but they could be better placed , better sized for sure .

Matt Traum 57:39

And the good thing about that is the fix for that is just a simple one piece that would be made longer . You don't have to redesign the entire instrument for that .

Alistair Parnell 57:46

No . No that's right

Harmony options

Alistair Parnell 57:48

.

Matt Traum 57:48

And I'd like to talk a little bit about intelligent harmony , which is , I think , a really powerful feature for wind controllers , and of course we have that now in the AE-30 model . Yes , the limitation though on that is that all , let's say , you have four parts playing in a diatonic harmony , you know , pertaining to a certain key . All four parts are the same instrument , so it's all the same timbre . It'd be nice to have a divisi capability where , if you have the harmony off and you have that layer , you've got the layer of , let's say , four different instruments trumpet , trombone , alto sax , tenor sax but then , if you turn the harmony on , then it divisis out and you'll have the trumpet on the top and the second part will be your trombone or whatever , but each instrument takes one part of the chord . That might be a really cool thing , and if you can pan those instruments , well , I guess you can do that in the patch , so that wouldn't be a problem . That's already there , yeah .

Alistair Parnell 58:43

I absolutely agree . That would be fantastic .

Matt Traum 58:46

Yeah , that would be , maybe the next step for that .

Matt Traum 58:48

Built-in breath sustain . We talked about that , like on the Yamaha MFC2 . I just think that's a useful feature when you're adjusting things and you have to take a hand off your instrument .

Matt Traum 58:58

Yeah , so those are some things . As far as EVI and Roland .

Matt Traum 59:07

If I go over to Yamaha , I would suggest , you know , let's make a wind controller that has a bite sensor . Of course they did it on the three previous WX models , but the saxophones , the YDS series , do not have a bite sensor , unfortunately . Go back to the bite sensor and maybe put a multi-timbral VL in there , or even a single voice VL like a VL70 built into the horn . Now , that would be pretty cool , and if you had two VLs playing out of the same horn , or four , if it's possible , that would be tremendous . I would also encourage them to look at the Montage synth , a scaled-down version of that , maybe four-voice polyphony and , you know , very scaled down , but that also has FM , you know , as well as the sample-based synth . FM is great for wind controller players

Matt Traum 59:46

If I go over to Akai , the Akai EWI SOLO is a nice instrument . It'd be nice to be able to fully edit the sounds in it . It's more or less a preset instrument with built-in sounds . You really can't change the sounds in those . That and the 5000 are pretty much preset . You can do some minor edits to reverb and things like that . But it'd be nice to have full editing and maybe use Sound font format or something where it's more standardized . The EWI SOLO speaker is excellent . I think it sounds great . Yeah , yeah , but that's a long instrument . It's not quite three feet long , I think , but it's pretty long . So you've got this nice speaker but it's almost three feet away from the player's head and it's pointing to the floor . So it would be nice to get that speaker up by the player's mouth so you have a more immediate feedback . But the speaker quality is excellent and that would be also something we mention, b ut with the Aerophones I think their speakers leave a lot to be desired as far as the sound quality . They're great to have for practicing , but it would be great to have better speakers in there- even if it's mono . Exactly , they are stereo . There's two speakers in but they're pretty small and the quality could be made better , I think on those . Maybe the next EWI from Akai could have the sample playback like they've had in the last couple models , but also incorporate the analog playback of the 4000 because the 4000 a lot of people love that 4000 for that feature and they , they , you know it's still pretty uh pretty good resale value on those 4000s because of that . They like that full sound- the analog sound . A nd of course I'd like to see Akai make an EVI , you know that'd be wonderful , but I don't have a whole lot of hope for that .

Alistair Parnell 1:01:34

Yeah , yeah , I mean , they've been a bit quiet , haven't they ? Well , I guess they've done the SOLO , haven't they ? But yeah , with their kind of , if you like , the more professional level of instrument , it's been a while since .

Matt Traum 1:01:49

Yeah , it's been several years .

Alistair Parnell 1:01:51

The 5000 ?

Matt Traum 1:01:52

The EWI 5000 was released back in January of 2014 . So it's been 11 years from today . The EWI SOLO came out in 2020 . So they're due for another one . Let's hope . I always have hope and it's always nice to see a new model .

Matt Traum 1:02:15

Maybe now's a good time to talk a little bit about your iSax

iSax Academy update

Matt Traum 1:02:19

Academy , Alistair ?

Alistair Parnell 1:02:20

Yeah , Well , you know , like we've mentioned before , there's quite a lot of stuff there on the Roland Aerophones that perhaps the manuals and things can be a little bit overwhelming . So the courses that I do for the on the iSax Academy , there are two sets of courses basically . The first one is teaching you how to play the notes . It starts off with pretty basic form and then you kind of move on to some slightly more challenging things with that . And then the second one , which is my advanced Aerophone course . That's the one that really helps you get to the bottom of all those settings and we actually go into kind of making some of your own sounds and how you can connect to external sounds as well . So , as a kind of overall , if you already play something like a saxophone , then that advanced Aerophone course is the one to go for .

Alistair Parnell 1:03:13

And I'll give you a little sort of sneak preview . I am working on a new course , so keep tabs on things because I'm hoping for that to be launching around the kind of springtime . So that's going to be an advanced course from the sort of player's point of view , not so much about the technology side , it's about how do we make the best possible sound on a wind synthesizer , particularly the Aerophone . So keep a watch out for that at www . isax . academy . And , Matt , you were going to tell us about some sounds , I think were you .

Matt Traum 1:03:57

Yeah , thanks . And again , I want to just encourage people to take advantage of Alistair's courses . They're wonderful and even if you don't play an Aerophone , I think there's a lot to be learned there , because he talks about other things as well and also just to have access to Alistair on a one-to-one , you know level . I mean you join his academy and you've got him there and you can ask him questions and you're going to get the right answer from an expert . So he's , he's just a great asset , so take advantage of it .

Alistair Parnell 1:04:25

Thank you so much .

Matt Traum 1:04:27

Oh , absolutely . And every so often I

Patchman WindPak sound banks

Matt Traum 1:04:31

like to maybe pick a sound bank or an instrument , or a soft synth that I have done some sounds for . So today I'd like to maybe highlight the WindPa k sample libraries that I've done for the Native Instruments , Kontakt 4 or higher versions of Kontakt . Now you have to have the full versions of Kontakt . You can't use the Kontakt Player with these sounds , but if you have the full version of Kontakt 4 or higher , I have released three WindPaks for Kontakt and they're all set up fully programmed with effects and legato and they respond beautifully to a wind controller . You get a smooth , nice legato .

Matt Traum 1:05:10

Each WindPak has five instruments in it and that includes samples and the programming that I've done . So they're custom new samples ready to go . All you have to do is get the file . You can order them anywhere in the world and I can email these files to you .

Matt Traum 1:05:25

So there's three WindP aks . WindP ak 1 has bass clarinet , clarinet , English horn, flute, and pan flute . And these include samples of those instruments , multi-samples that have been specially designed and tweaked to work with a wind controller , and also programming and effects . So here's the audio demo from that WindP ak .

Matt Traum 1:06:38

And WindPak 2 has the recorder family . I've got five different recorders , including sopranino , soprano , alto, tenor, and bass , and here's a demo from that .

Matt Traum 1:07:35

WindPak 3 has five wind instruments being bamboo flute , flutophone , ocarina , tin whistle, and vintage harmonica , and here's some audio from that .

Matt Traum 1:08:32

So those are available at patchmanmusic . com . Just click on the green software button that's at the left and you'll find the Native Instruments button there , and it'll take you to those sounds where you can listen to the demos in full and order them if you'd like .

Alistair Parnell 1:08:44

And that Wind Pak 3 , the one with the tin whistle and the harmonica that has been in my kind of top used sounds for quite a long time now . I mean they're just always in there . For me that's a great library of sounds . I have to admit I haven't tried the 1 and 2 , but certainly I can vouch for that third WindPak . Lovely sounds , lovely to play , great response and just really work extremely well . So thank you for those , Matt , they're great .

Matt Traum 1:09:16

Oh , my pleasure . And thanks for the kind words . I want to emphasize that these are ready to go and play with the wind controller . So people always ask me oh , do I have to program and what do I have to do ? You don't have to do anything , they're ready to go . Just make sure your wind controller is sending a MIDI breath controller which is MIDI controller number 2 and you are good to go .

Alistair Parnell 1:09:39

So I think we've covered quite a lot of mileage there , Matt , with our ideas . I'm sure the listeners have got their own ideas and , like I said at the beginning , anyone that would like to drop us a voicemail we love the voicemails and or or just a message is fine , and we'll certainly incorporate anything that you send us into a future podcast . And talking about future podcasts , we are actually approaching

Looking forward to Tom Scott

Alistair Parnell 1:10:05

our first year anniversary . It seems to have gone very , very quickly and we're so pleased with the response that we've had from this podcast . We wanted to do something really special for the kind of anniversary show , as it were , and we've actually managed to do something we're both really kind of proud of and feel very , very excited about .

Alistair Parnell 1:10:30

So for podcast 13 and for podcast 14 , they'll be coming along soon we have managed to get hold of an incredibly special guest , and that is Mr Tom Scott . Now , I'm sure he doesn't need any introduction to a lot of you if you've looked into any wind synth players at all , but Tom was one of the original wind controller pioneers and he's possibly done more than anybody else to bring the sound of the wind controller to the mainstream . So there have been many , many recordings and productions that he's used the wind synth in doing things like pop hits by Steely Dan , Captain and Tennille , Dan Fogelberg , Michael Jackson a whole heap of other stuff as well . Too much to go into now . But we will be talking to Tom Scott going right back to his early days of playing the Lyricon . He then went on to the Yamaha WX series and now he actually plays the Roland AE-30 . So that is really interesting to hear Tom talk about that . So , Matt , we are really excited about the next couple of episodes , yeah absolutely .

Matt Traum 1:11:49

I can't think of anybody that's done more for getting the wind controller out there than Tom to the general public . Now , of course , you have Michael Brecker and Bob Mintzer , but they're a little bit different in what they've done . So we have to give Tom Scott a huge amount of credit , and I can't think of anybody that we would want for our anniversary episode than the great Tom Scott . So we're really looking forward to it .

Alistair Parnell 1:12:14

And he's also got some fantastic anecdotes , as a lot of these players , just like Judd Miller , had a lot of really fascinating stories on the way as well , so they're going to be two really fantastic episodes . I really encourage you all to make sure you are subscribed to the podcast so you don't miss that . They'll be coming out in the next couple of months , so please make sure you're subscribed , and I think that's a wrap for today , so I'll say goodbye for me , Alistair Parnell , coming to you from Nottingham in the UK .

Matt Traum 1:12:47

And this is Matt Traum coming from Ohio in the US . And Alistair , you've done a cracking job again and we're doubly chuffed for the next couple episodes with Mr . Tom Scott .

Alistair Parnell 1:12:57

We are indeed !

Matt Traum 1:12:59

Tune in again , folks .

Alistair Parnell 1:13:32

Bye for now .

Matt Traum 1:13:40

Cracking is a good thing, right ?

Alistair Parnell 1:13:41

Cracking job is good, of course, yes !