EWI 4000s setup hints?

Comments

• dstong

  October 2013 edited 7:54PM

  I'm talking about the new Saxophones using the SWAM engine and for all of the Saxophones I found that setting Vibrato to CC2 (as suggested by my friend Kobi), produces far better vibrato than the default setting. For me this was probably the single most important setting to make the instruments sing.
  
  
  
  I think I also enable the Auto Learn Expression (it's not in front of me so I don't remember exactly). There are lots of parameters that are adjustable, and some don't seem to make any difference to my ears. The Vibrato Rate I set to about 4, and the Random Vibrato Rate to something like 5-8. I play around with these a lot and I'm never sure I have it adjusted optimally. Possibly the optimal setting should be different for upper vs lower range.
  
  
  
  I've wanted a darker, more mellow, breathy tenor sound and I can post all the settings that I use after I bring up the program on my other computer, but I can tell you immediately that the other tweak I discovered was to turn up the gain on my amplifier/mixer and blow very softly/gently to keep the sound mellow.
  
  
  
  As far as the sensitivity knobs on the EWI-4000s here are my settings:
  
  
  
  (numbers are clock settings)
  
  
  
  GL (I haven't played w these yet, so it's default
  
  
  
  
  
  PB A: Sensor 1 W: PB Width 2
  
  
  
  VB A: Depth Adj 7
  
  
  
  BR A Breath Sensor appx 4 S: Sensitivity appx 10
  
  
  
  
  
  The BR settings are interactive, so after you adjust one, you affect the other, so you need to back and forth with them in order to do achieve
  
  
  
  (1) Ability to start a note very soft
  
  (2) To get the maximum Dynamic Range
  
  
  
  I suspect these settings drift over time and temperature changes, so that they may need to be adjusted from time to time to remain optimal. Also, these BR settings may vary between samples of instruments (EWIs) since it is analog and the components (capacitors etc) may vary a bit between component sample values.
  
  
  
  I hope that answered some of your questions.
• smw

  December 2013 edited 7:54PM

  Thanks! This does help, but there's still a problem I don't seem able to solve by myself.
  
  
  
  In particular, with my current setup I don't seem to have any control over articulation with either the SWAM clarinet or bass clarinet. I don't think this is a problem with the way my EWI is configured, because the same EWI works just fine with the Kontakt-based SampleModeling instruments; it's just the clarinets that have this problem (and I'd expect the saxes to behave the same way, but I haven't bought those yet, and won't until I can get the clarinets to respond the same way that the brasses do).
  
  
  
  I notice that the SWAM engine has its own algorithm to detect articulation; is there some way to turn that off and just use the MIDI data sent from the EWI? As it is, no matter what I do, the sound comes out legato -- and even though it's a very *nice* legato :-), it would still be nice to be able to play staccato at least once in a while, for variety. :-)
  
  
  
  What am I missing?
  
  
  
  - Steven
• Phil999

  January 2014 edited 7:54PM

  did you load the windcontroller preset? This preset should be loaded before playing notes.
• dstong

  January 2014 edited 7:54PM

  I'm afraid I haven't any useful ideas about your articulation problems. I have not had any problems of that sort, the articulations work fine with all of the instruments whether using the Kontakt or SWAM player. I do see differences with respect to tweaking vibrato to my taste, but that's about all, and the Saxophones are far improved on the SWAM vs the older ones using Kontakt.
  
  
  
  I hope someone else may have some suggestions for you.
  
  
  
  Dan