Klarinet Archive - Posting 000247.txt from 1998/05

From: Kevin J Bowman <kbowman@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Midi Wind Instruments
Date: Wed, 6 May 1998 17:09:38 -0400

I've been interested in MIDI wind controllers for some time. Although I have
never played either the Yamaha nor the Akai sticks I have done some
research (and I've even built my own from scratch). Here is some information
(as I understand it):
The Yamaha instrument has a "blow-through" mechanism for breath control
whereas the Akai is "stopped up". This means that the Yamaha will play
more naturally to musicians already familiar with a wind instrument. When
I built my own controller, I experimented with different methods of detecting
air pressure and I can tell you that it is MUCH easier to control volume
dynamics if you are blowing *through* a mouthpiece (as opposed to trying
to control pressure into a stopped up tube).
In all the pictures I've seen of both instruments, the Yamaha looks like
it is more ergonomically engineered. The keys on the Akai look very
rudimentary. It looks like Yamaha has put some thought into how the
fingers lay on the instrument. This was one of my problems when designing
my instrument. I ended up using small button-cap swithces for the "keys"
(even for the usual "levers" operated by your pinky fingers) and the layout
and spring resistance of the swithced play a large role in how easy the
thing is to play.
One more thing: expect to play saxophone fingerings. It's much easier for
the software to accomodate "overblowing" an octave than to it is to
accomodate the clarinet's 12th. In my instrument I used a simple look-up
table to correlate finger "patterns" to MIDI notes but a smarter program
might take into account the exclusive use of a register key (or even the
generation of harmonic overtones). I considered allowing the user to select
from several "fingering charts" but I ran out of memory. That would be a
REAL nice feature to have (any Yamaha or Akai marketing types out there?).

I played a gig once with a guy that had a Yamaha MIDI stick (W5?) and he
usually played a Ten. Sax sound but sometimes ventured into flute and
even "bongos" (that was a neat trick).

Kevin Bowman
---

Carl Schexnayder wrote:

> Hi Folks,
>
> Would anyone happen to have any information on midi wind instruments? I
> know Yamaha makes an electronic woodwind instrument, as does Akai and
> Cashio. I'm more intrested in the Yamaha and the Akai. I want something
> that could mimic the sounds of various accoustic instruments and I would
> also be interested in using it to enter music on Finale, etc. I don't have
> room to set up a midi keyboard.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Carl Schexnayder
>

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