Roland AE-10

frokka

Roland has announced a new wind controller, the AE-10:

https://www.roland.com/us/products/aerophone_ae-10/



It has USB MIDI and onboard sounds as well, even a monitor speaker!

Will cost around 800 USD.



It seems they have not taken the opportunity to make a more advanced controller with extra buttons or sliders. This is a disappointment to me, and I wonder if the market really needs another controller with internal sounds even though this one might be a step up from the AKAI controllers soundwise.



I want to see a wind device that can control both the player and the sequencer more in depth.

MSchnell

The mouth piece and finger unit seem nice.



To me internal sounds don't make any sense at all.



Wireless Midi would have made great sense !



Regarding the five Demo Videos all but the (very short) last one seem like total crap to me.



-Michael

Maddcow

I'm not impressed with this offering thus far. It doesn't even send CC02....only CC11 (expression) at this stage.

MSchnell

Ooooops.



They say:



"You can connect to your computer via USB to play soft synths and external MIDI sound modules through your DAW, with breath control providing a world of unique expression not possible with keyboard synthesizers. "



To me this would suggests that both expression and bite force are transferred.



On a computer (DAW) mapping controllers should not be a problem and more flexibly doable to do than on the controller itself



-Michael

frokka

After watching the video by Alistair Parnell I now see that the AE-10 has a small thumb-joystick on the back side. It seems to be XY so that two additional parameters can be controlled, and that helps a lot. But if it's true (which Alistair also says) that it only transmits expression I'm still rather sceptical. I like the display menu though..

MSchnell

... and the other video vy the same guy (following up) demonstrating how horrible the internal sounds are, even when played by a trained sax player.



-Michael

3dogmike

Apparently these mfgs seem to feel they have to put crap sounds on board but may allow you to put "lipstick on a pig" by letting you edit them. Now that the iPhone has a fast processor and ample storage, the real solution would be for Native Instruments or some other VST developer like Samplemodeling develop something for IOS to run vsts like the Sax Brothers on the iPhone. You could then use a wireless bluetooth LE dongle on and EWI or WX5 to the iPhone which would be connect to an amp. This would eliminate the need for a laptop but still give us quality sounds that would not locked down by the mfg of the instrument. The AE-10 does not have a 5 pin midi out so we would need a USB B wireless solution but that may not be possible as i don't think USB B provides enough power for the bluetooth le device. Are you listing Samplemodeling????

MSchnell

Why iPhone ?



Android phones are just as powerful and a lot cheaper and outnumber iPhone by far.



AFAIK, there is no "USB wireless". The multiple protocols that are transferred via USB (such as Midi) all need their own wireless specification.



I recently learned that there is a new standard "Midi via bluetooth" (le) standard. There are Yamaha devices that use that standard, but the AE-10 uses a different (propriety) protocol.



Bome provides a Midi via WLAN solution "BomeBox".



-Michael

phillyjazz

I finally got my AE-10 to work today .. Actually, I spent countless hours trying to get ANY wind controller (mostly my WX-7) to work. The AE-10 seems much better for what ever reason, but at this point, I still need to set up the Saxophones for "Keyboard." I can map the thumb slider to CC2, but I have to keep it held to use the "Wind Controller" settings. I like to use the thumb "left" for growl. I guess I'll figure it out. Most of the horns seem to need to be bumped up and octave or two (on the AE-10) by default.



BTW, the reason I struggled so long was that the SWAM engine seems to need me to hit "PLAY" in my host to recognize anything. Other VSTs could be configured at any time. Mostly I am using Band in a Box as a host, but now I guess I'll try and configure Cantabile.

MSchnell

AFAIU, The "Keyboard" setting in SWAM is just a predefined set of parameters. You can tweak all parameters to any position starting with any preset.



I suppose Band in a box is not a good tool to host VSTs for live playing. Of course Cantabile will be usable.



I myself do have BiaB, but I only use it as fellow-musicians for practicing. As a VST host for live playing (and for recording) I very happily use Reaper. Here I can do really complex programming to tweak the midi data stream before it reaches the VST instrument.



With Reaper I have only one bill (some € 60) and one learning curve for live playing plus recording/mixing/postproduction all in a very versatile and stable way..



-Michael

dstong

I'm happy to see that another wind controller is available, but I will wait to hear from serious players to see how well it compares to the EWI instruments.



Some of the sounds introduced with the 2.0 version, such as the harmonica sound pretty good. In fact a handful of the sounds (harmonica, baritone sax, trumpet, pipe organ in Alistair Parnell's video's sound a lot better to my ears, than any of the built in sounds for any other windcontroller such as the EWI-4000s. The fact that the key layout is based on the saxophone (as well as the use of a reed for pitchbend) is a real bonus for sax players. Are these virtual instrument sounds anywhere close to those you can get with samplemodeling ones? Of course not.



Competition by manufacturer/designers (Yamaha, Akai, Roland) is a good thing and is likely to improve these instruments as well as lowering prices.



There are a number of nice features in the Roland AE-10 such as line input for mixing mp3, which is great for practicing with accompaniment even without a computer. Do I like the gimmicky synth sounds? No, but I wouldn't mind having a good harmonica sound, and if the AE-10 will work well with samplemodeling, then that will be really wonderful.



It is disappointing but not surprising that Roland as well as all other companies promote their instruments with music of the lowest common denominator, but that's simply following most fashionable taste promoted these days.



So, I'm eagerly awaiting the feedback from PhillyJazz, as well anyone else, in this forum who has a Roland AE10.



Thanks,



Dan