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Looper's Delight
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At 9:48 PM +0000 12/18/07, Ian Popperwell wrote: >Hi, > >Interested in the EWI thread. I play a Yamaha WX5 and also don't >want to emulate "real" instruments - I play saxophones and flute and >although the VL70M is good, it feels slightly distasteful using some >of those sounds (although I like the trumpet!). I have used the Korg >MS2000 which works great with the CC breath controller patched up to >various parameters. > >I like the idea of the EWI4000 as it is one unit, no need to carry >round extra modules (if the sounds are any good). Also not sure >about the ease of the touch sensitive controls re glitching? The WX5 >needs lots of practice to keep the glitches away and I guess I >wonder (having never played an EWI) how much harder it is without >actual mechanical keys? > >Any comments? Well, I can't comment on the EWI, but I use the WX11 with the VL70-m. I'd say first, regarding the VL70's sounds, run (literally, do not walk... run) out and get the Turbo VL Replacement ROM from Patchman Music ( http://www.patchmanmusic.com/turbovl.html ). If you haven't heard of it, this replaces the crappy ROM sounds from the Yamaha's preset memory with 256 high-quality patches. There are a couple of turkeys in there (there always are in any commercial patch bank) but I rarely have to do any programming on the VL anymore. More often than not, I can usually pick something out of the batch that Matt's put together. Even if I don't find the exact thing I'm looking for, it provides a great starting point -- for non-horn or non-conventional-instrument patches too. I haven't actually tried out the WX5 with the VL, but my older WX11 gives me no glitches at all (considering proper technique -- I can purposely overblow or underblow and octave-hop, if that's what you mean). I have used the original WX7 with it, and I don't like that nearly as well as the WX11. The WX7 seems to prefer sending its expression across CC7 (Volume) rather than CC2 (Breath Control). It seems to take away some of the expressiveness of the patches. Even if you get an EWI, you should keep that in mind. Anyway, back to the WX5: I never bothered to pick one of those up because I heard a lot of people complaining about them. I heard it said that the 5 was actually a step back, and inferior to both the 7 & 11 in playability. That may be your issue right there. So, you may find the EWI an improvement over the WX5, but if you're going to hang on to the VL70-m (and I'm biased but think you should; I'd say I haven't found a better physical modelling horn synth yet, even in software) see if you can find a second-hand WX11 to try with it. And get Matt's Turbo VL ROM. You'll like the VL70-m a lot better, at least. ;) --m. -- _____ "Image is blasphemy. Text is heresy. The spoken word is a lie." ( x ) <--- you are here.