For the audio connections, locate the circuit board for the Phones/Line Out/Ext. In on the extreme left of the front panel (looking from the back). From the Phones board, unplug the white six-wire connector that originates from the front panel, and from the bottom board, un plug the white, four-wire connector that originates from the Phones board. Remove the circuit board bracket from the front panel, then remove the bracket from the board. If you need a little more working slack in the other wires, follow the remaining wires and clip the offending wire ties. Locate the terminals for each jack on the circuit board (see Fig. 2) and solder two 12" lengths of shielded cable to the indicated leads on the board.

 

Reattach the board to the board bracket, mount the bracket to the front panel, then reconnect the four- and six-wire connections to their respective locations. Solder the other end of each cable to a 1/4" Jack, and mount the jack in one of the prepared mounting holes. Don't forget to mark which jack is which. Footswitch Jack The EWV can accept either a single momentary switch with a mono plug to advance program numbers, or two momentary switches with a stereo plug, to move program numbers both up and down. Remove the circuit board for the footswitch (on the extreme right of the front panel). Locate the proper terminal connections and solder a 15" length of two-conductor shielded cable to the leads indicated in Fig. 3. Reinstall the board. Connect the other end to the 1/4" stereo jack, and mount the jack in the remaining hole you drilled. To test your handiwork. Insert the dummy plugs (with no wires attached) into the Ext. In and Footswitch jacks on the front panel, then make your audio and footswitch connections in back. Confirm that everything is functioning as it should. If not, check the plugs and your solder connections. If all is well, use wire ties and route the new cables conveniently. Carefully replace and secure the front panel of the EWV, observing the same precautions as when opening it. A Touching Situation A frequent complaint about the EVI and EWI is their tendency to generate glitches and jump octaves. This happen because the keys interpret the slightest finger contact as a note change. One solution barely mentioned in the controller manual, is described as Touch Sensor Sensitivity. The EVI/EWI keys work by sensing the change in capacitance generated by the touch of your fingers. The Touch Sensor Sensitivity fine tunes the threshold at which a note change is recognized. Turning it down (further from the warble) means more of your finger must contact the key to generate a note change. This reduces stray notes caused by stray fingers. It will also force you to be more tactile-ly aware and to execute fingering with more physical conviction. (By the way the sensor adjustment on my EVI is exactly the opposite of that described in the manual: stable high pitch at the right extreme, stable low pitch at the left, the warble somewhere in the middle.) The Pitch Bend thumb sensor pads also work through capacitance, and you can tailor their response with the judicious application of a lifesaving, high-tech, live-performance tool: sticky tape, any kind from gaffer's to electrical to Scotchtm (nail polish is too messy for this). I set my voices to ben a maximum of two half steps, then adjust the amount and position of the tape on the pads so a moderate thumb roll bends a half step, and more yields a whole step. I cover just the little tail of my EVI's up-bend pad, about half of the large plate area, and the tail on my down-bend pad (see Fig. 4). On an EWI, you can adjust the response of the glide plate similarly. Zen and the Art of EVI Maintenance Rollers: The EWI/EVI rollers turn around a stationary center post screwed onto a circuit board. Occasionally ,the coating on the post inhibits contact with the rollers, causing it to respond intermittently or not at all. If you experience this problem, remove the roller assembly from the circuit board and take the rollers apart. Gently sand the black coating off the post. Put a drop of motor oil on it, and reassemble.

PARTS LIST Duplicate Input/Output and Footswitch Jacks 2 chassis-mount, 1/4-inch mono jacks (one each for Line Out and Ext.In) 1 chasis-mount, 1/4-inch stereo jack (footswitch) Single-conductor shielded cable (for Line Out and Ext. In) Two-conductor shielded cable (for footswitch) 2 1/4-inch mono phone plugs (used as dummy pulgs for Ext. In and footswitch) Plastic wire ties

The rollers aren't exactly easy to remove, and trying this may damage the circuit board, so if it ain't broke, don't fix it. If you do damage the traces of the circuit board, repaint them with nickel print-conductive paint, available at most electronics stores.

Bite Sensor: The manual says to use only lip pressure on the bite sensor to get EWI vibrato or EVI glide, but Tim Tully's EWI Review (Feb. '88 EM) quotes inventor Nyle Steiner saying you should bite with the teeth. Frankly, I find the easiest way to activate the sensor is to bend the mouthpiece. Bending the mouthpiece gives you much more pitch bend range than biting does anyway, and you know you won't bit through with this technique.

Vibrato Sensor: If your EVI vibrato sensor too sensitive to minute motion, no matter where the vibrato adjustment is set stick a 1/8" layer of soft foam (or one of those little adhesive keyboard pads that come with keyboard stands) over the sensor; don't cover the earth plate.

Mouthpiece angle: Most trumpet players I know hold their horns turned a little clockwise, to facilitate easier fingering, and to reduce strain on the left hand. Well, EVI players, it's completely undocumented in the manual but this can be done with your instrument, too. Remove the rubber bushing around the mouthpiece base; it should slide right off. Remove the three screws around the mouthpiece end of the controller, one on each side next to the Akai logos, and one next to the Cord connector. Hold the mouthpiece steady, remove the top cowling surrounding the mouthpiece. Reinstall the two side screws.

The mouthpiece is mounted on a flat metal bar, bent on one end to accommodate two screws. Loosen these screws, and turn the mouthpiece counterclockwise, and tighten the screws. Be careful not to over-tighten, as the screws are self-tapped in the black plastic. Remove the two side screws, and reassemble the top cowling. Don't forget the bushing! You can now turn the EVI controller to a more comfortable playing angle.

EWV2000 Programming Tips

Ext. In: The Ext. In jack routes the audio output from an Ext. synth through the analog amplifier and filter of the EWV's Oscillator 1, allowing you to impose analog volume and/or filter control on your MIDI synth or sampler. To make the most of this, remove all velocity sensitivity from you synth voice, and adjust the EWV filter to the range you desire. You now have total control of volume without any interference from the synth responding to velocity values. Adjust the envelope settings in the synth so that note changes occur smoothly. Remember that since the synth is routed through he EWV, when you stop playing, the sound stops - period. Long release times are ineffective.

Breath-Controlled Filter: With EWV sounds, to make sure the filter doesn't open completely before your volume peaks, blow hard into the instrument while lowering the VCF Breath Intensity control from 100. Stop when the filter starts to close (the sound gets duller). Play a little, and tweak this setting to get maximum control.

This breath setting interacts with the filter cutoff frequency. If you find a good timbre, but you'd like the sound to start out brighter, raise the cutoff frequency, then lower the breath VCF setting by the amount you added to the cutoff frequency. This puts you in the ballpark, and a small amount of fine tuning should optimize the response.

All of this also holds true when routing another synth through the EWV. If you want only volume control and no filtering, set the cutoff frequency to 100.

Velocity Settings: While the original EWV2000's only sent a Midi velocity of 64, a ROM update included in newer units (contact any Akai service center) lets the EWV send the full range of velocity values. This chip adds another page to the MIDI button that acts as a MIDI monitor, and reads:

where CPT is Capture Time, and VELO is Velocity of the last note played. Capture time determines when, during your articulation, the EWV sends a velocity value.

Most wind/brass players don't produce a percussive attack envelope (strong attack with lesser sustain and/or decay) on a continued basis, as all keyboards do. Rather, we wind types have a nasty habit of swelling into notes, either slowly or quickly. So if the envelope created by your attack goes from 0 to 127 in 100 msec., the velocity that's sent could be anywhere from 1 to 127, depending on how long the EWV waits before it thinks "Okay, he's at the volume (velocity) he wants to play". Particularly when you're playing a sound that you want to be always percussive, regardless of your breath pressure (e.g. a piano sound), this can make the difference between pulling off a nice line, and having notes that don't sound.

For sounds like this, I find the EWV's delay unacceptable unless set to three or below. (This may be due to my particular unit: I've heard of people setting it to five and higher with satisfactory results.) So set a capture time as high as tolerable and play as percussively as possible.

The Yamaha MEP-4:

A great tool for interfacing the EWV2000 with other synths is the Yamaha MEP-4 Midi Event Processor. (See the July "87 EM sidebar, p.38.) It houses four Midi processors which can channelizing, convert controller data, transpose and more. If the EWV doesn't interface with your synth, the MEP4 may solve the problem. If you're sequencing, the MEP-4 will selectively filter the large amount of continuous data the EWI and EVI send and negate the occasional pitch wheel flutter.

Craig Hara is a freelance Trumpet Player, Drummer, EVIst, Synth programmer, and overall glutton for digital punishment residing in Los Angeles. He thanks electric wind gurus Nyle Steiner, Seth Krimsky, and Scott Wilkinson. Craig can be reached at: harable@aol.com

(Continued from discussion of Velocity) Question: what if you want to trigger a keyboard/percussive sound from your sampler, which is plugged into your ext. in, but you want to preserve the timbre and long decay/release? Answer: 1) set the cutoff frequency to 100 (this keeps the filter open); 2) set the VCA EG so Depth =100, Attack=00, Decay=00, Sustain=100, and Release=100 (this keeps the VCA open long after the note is released); 3) set the Breath VCA to 00 (negating any control from breath); 4) set Ext. Balance to -100, and Output Level to 100. Ta-Da -- you've made your EWV transparent.

Chord Function:

The chord function allows you to send chords through Midi from the EWV. You can store up to 16 chords, each with up to four notes relative to the note played (Check the manual). The point I want to clarify is that these 16 chords are a pool from which to choose, and these can be used in any combination PER PATCH. For example, let's say that I've programmed a major triad as Chord 00, where the fingered note is the root. Chord 01 is a minor triad, with the fingered note as the fifth. Now let's say that I'm programming a patch where I want some chords. The easiest way would be to assign Chord 00 to each note of the chromatic octave, so that I generate parallel chords, no matter what I play. You can, however, mix and match the chord assignments depending on your need or whim. I could set it so that when I play a C, I'll trigger Chord 00; when I play a C#, I'll trigger Chord 01; D=00, D#=00, E=01, etc. Get the idea? I could conceivably have the same chord (harmonically) no matter what note I play! Or I could have parallel chords for the first fifth of the scale, then a different chord for the remainder. The possibilities are finite, but there's still a lot of depth (and there's more if you're Midi'ed to a synth that can generate chords itself).

Sequencing:

Sequencing with the EWV system is limited to use with Tone Generators which can respond to the Midi information generated by the EWV (Volume, Breath Control, Velocity). In other words, you should consider the analog expression circuitry of the EWV system nonexistent, as far as sequencing is concerned. When sequencing using Midi Volume, I've found that using a patch thru function (as in Mark of the Unicorn's Performer) works best for the monitoring of tone generator response while recording. Unfortunately, the response of Midi Volume is different from the analog response of the EWV expression circuitry, so you'll have to make adjustments. This is not to say that sequencing can't be done from the EWV -- it can be, and with good results (when using Performer, judicious use of the "Thin Controller" command helps to lighten the load on the sequencer). Also: if you're not planning to record pitch bend information or vibrato into the sequence, turn the vibrato knob on the EWV off. This will compensate for the EWV's habit of dribbling lot's (and lot's and lot's) of very small pitch bend signals out through Midi (read on for a remedy).

Using the EWV with the Yamaha TX81Z:

An obvious choice as a Midi mate for the EVI/EWI is the Yamaha TX81Z, an inexpensive but powerful little one-space rack synth. The TX81Z's multitimbral capabilities offer a quick path into sound layering, and it's 8 waveforms offer a nice palette of sounds fairly quickly, if you're familiar with FM synthesis.

TX81Z Mono Mode:

A big advantage to the TX81Z is using a single voice in Mono mode. When playing legato, the EWV sends a note-off immediately after the next note-on, creating a seamless line of notes without any gaps. When set in Mono mode, the TX81Z responds to this information by moving to the sustain portions of it's envelops of the current voice, bypassing the attack portion unless a gap is received before a note-on. If you've programmed a brass patch, you can maintain the smoother sustained sounds by playing legato, and save the attacks for when you actually attack. The reverse is also possible, with a slow attack at the beginning of a phrase, but full sustain during the lyrical legato body of the phrase.

TX81Z Chord function:

With some planning, you can combine the chord functions of the EWV2000 and the TX81Z to create chord clusters consisting of up to 10 notes (8 from the TX81Z, and the two oscillators of the EWV). The TX81Z can store one chord for each note in a chromatic scale for the whole unit (12 in all). Combined with the EWV's chordal abilities, you could get into some very heavy combinations. It can take a bit of planning, but the results can be worth the work.

TX81Z Volume/Breath Control:

There are two ways to control volume and/or timber with the EWV2000: through Midi Volume (controller 7) or Breath Control (controller 2). Both have advantages and shortcomings. The advantage of either for volume control is that it frees up the Ext. In for use with another synth, thus avoiding the loss of fidelity when mixing more than one synth into the EWV2000. The major shortcoming of both is the resolution of the TX81Z's response to either of these controllers. You'll find that the sound of a crescendo or decrescendo has a noticeably gritty sound to it. If using breath control for timbral control as well as volume (E.G. Bias on carriers and modulators), the grittiness is magnified: each step becomes twice as big because two aspects of the voice are being stepped up simultaneously. One some darker sounds, or when layering with other synths, the stepping may not be noticeable, but on brighter sounds and if soloed out, the stepping is quite noticeable. Whether or not it is acceptable is going to be up to you and your needs and tastes.

TX81Z Performance Mode:

When used in Performance mode, the TX81Z can help to fill out the total sound you're producing with the EWV2000. You can double or triple the voices in the TX81Z, detuning them slightly and panning them differently, creating a stereo chorus effect. You can also layer complimenting or contrasting sounds to create a composite that would not otherwise be achievable. Also, be advised that the glide commands from the EWV (portamento) have no effect in performance mode.

TX81Z Patch Mapping:

When using the TX81Z with the EWV in a performance situation, the 81Z's patch mapping capabilities allow you to pair up the EWV's internal sounds with any of the 81Z's single or performance patches.

© Electronic Musician Magazine, October 1988.  Republished here by permission.
Special thanks to Craig Hara and Richard Rives for helping obtain this article.

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