The EWI3000 and the EWI3000m Reviewed
by James West

The new instrument looks better than the old one. The old sax controller looked a bit like it was assembled from spare parts. The new body is curved slightly and feels more sax-like. The right-hand little-finger keys are adjustable so that you can have just the "reach" you want, and now the mouthpiece is removable: it pulls straight off for easy cleaning.

The control module is no longer configured for rack-mounting, but is designed to lie flat, or to be placed on a keyboard stand. The parameters for editing and creating sounds are prominently displayed with their groupings on the front panel, which gives the precise address of each page of data, and makes editing much easier. The biggest, and most beautiful difference that one encounters at first glance, however, is the MIDI IN port in the back of the unit. This means that it is possible to trigger the EWI3000m from another MIDI instrument (including the EWV2000), but it also means that you can edit your sounds from a computer-based patch editor/librarian program. This makes editing much easier partly because you can "see" the entire sound on the computer screen, not just one page at a time. This will ultimately mean that there will be more sounds available for the module, because the users will write their own more readily.

More Sounds

The unit comes with 50 sounds in ROM and has 50 addresses for creating/editing sounds of your own, so the sound module can hold 100 different sounds. In addition to this, the sound module has 100 "program" addresses so that you can freely assign sounds from the sound mode in any order. This means that you can arrange your patches for a particular gig, and simply use a foot-switch to advance the module to the next patch. This is a very welcome addition, because on the old module, if you wanted to change the order of the sounds, you had to write over other patches. Getting the erased sound back meant that either you had to do a tape dump, or you had to punch in all the parameters "long-hand" into the module, which can be time-consuming.

New Modes

There are a few new buttons on the front panel. One is a "UTILITY" button which controls Memory Protect, Priority set-up, Bulk Dump, and Chord Programming. Another new button is the "MONITOR" button which displays Gliss, Glide, Bend, and Vibrato effects as a moving bar graph on the Liquid Crystal Display. This lets you "see" how much of a given effect you are using, and lets you set the parameters quicker. There is also a "GLIDE SWITCH" button which simply lets you turn the glide parameter on or off.

New Parameters

First of all, there are now four VCO's: two for source one, and two for source two. They are labelled VCO-A and VCO-B. You now have a choice of "OSC" or "VCF" on the FM page. If you choose "VCF", the VCO-A is modulated by changes in the envelope of the VCF. If you choose "OSC", VCO-A is modulated by VCO-B's waveform. The balance between VCO-A and VCO-B is adjustable as a ratio: as you turn VCO-A up, you automatically turn VCO-B down. This obviously means that the new instrument will program a bit differently. You will not be able to take your favorite sounds from the old EWV2000 and simply dump them into the new module. There is a "VELOCITY" page now for both the VCF and the VCA. This adjusts the response of the module to MIDI IN data. You can set the module to simply receive On/Off data, or to respond to velocity information. The LFO section is also new. You can set speed, depth, and amount of delay.

The Sounds

Four VCO's really do help to make the EWI3000m's patches more interesting. They sound "thicker". There are more exotic tones in the module, and there are more sounds that change as you modulate the breath, or tongue sharply. On the negative side, some of the patches sound like the programmer simply changed the cut-off frequency a bit, and stuck on a new label, but no electronic musician in his right mind expects to see a "killer" set of factory sounds! One gets the feeling that many more rich sounds will emerge after these modules have been in the hands of users for awhile. There is a good balance of sounds that have their envelopes generated by the breath (1-29), and those that use the internal envelope generators (31-50). The sounds from 51 to 79 are duplicates of 1 to 29, but are set to have their sounds produced with EGs, so that the instrument can be used with an external MIDI controller.

The Controller

The EWI3000 controller is similar to its predecessor, the EWI 1000. The differences are in basic shape, and in the mouthpiece. The mouthpiece was made to be removed, so AKAI added a protective cover to the electronic sensors. This makes the mouthpiece feel and respond "stiffer" than the old version. The mouthpiece is divide into two parts, as it was in the earlier version. One side holds the vibrato sensor, and the other side is for breath sensing. If you put just the wrong amount of mouthpiece into your mouth, you can very easily shut off the sound while trying to create vibrato. The solution seems to be to take more of the rubber tip into your mouth, and use your teeth to lightly hold the mouthpiece. This makes jaw vibrato easy, and stabilizes the instrument in your hands, but it takes a bit of getting used to. After playing the instrument, I've come to the conclusion that it slurs more naturally, with no annoying electronic "pings".

Another difference with the new controller is that air actually goes through it. There is a small airway that runs the length of the instrument to duplicate the sensation of playing a sax. If, however, you've gotten used to the feel of the old EWI, the hole looks like it is plug-upable. The design of the knurled octave rollers has been changed so that you can actually feel them easily with your thumb. This was not the case before, and should make finding "home position" easier.

The Bad Stuff

There are some things that AKAI changed or omitted from the new version that I feel weren't improvements.

No Interfacing with Old EWI/EVI

If you want to buy the new generator and plug it into your old EWI, forget it, at least for now. The cable is very different. AKAI may come up with an adaptor some day, but I'm not going to hold my breath. You can, of course, run the new sound module using the MIDI IN port, like you would with any other synth.

The Formant Filter

One of Nyle Steiner's neatest ideas was a selective filter that emulated the harmonic construction of certain acoustic instruments. The filter made certain sounds more "lifelike". This filter was left out of the new tone module.

Vibrato Parameters

On the old EWV 2000, you could control the amount of pitch change, timbre change, and amplitude change that went into the vibrato of a patch. This gave the instrument a very "human" feel. I feel that this is the biggest selling-point that a wind-controller has going for it, and that any reduction in the amount of user control over these parameters is a mistake. Adding an LFO is fine with me, as long as I can still choose the method in which I control vibrato. When using a "jaw vibrato", like a sax player would normally do, the new instrument only controls the pitch aspect of vibrato, which is fine if you're playing a sax patch, but is not so great if you're trying to simulate a flute, much of whose vibrato is made up of changes in amplitude and timbre. I tried doing a diaphragm vibrato as I played the flute sound, and I thought it would do in a pinch. The point is that we shouldn't have to pinch! I really miss being able to program and control all of the various vibrato parameters.

The Manual

It seems that every synth instruction manual gets criticized, and this one is no exception. Some of the mistakes are perhaps due to a less-than perfect understanding of English syntax, but many of the mistakes in this manual could have been fixed with a simple spell-checker! On a scale of one to two, I'd say that this manual is better than the old one, but it ain't going to make the book-of-the-month club!

Recommendations

Of course, I'd like to see all of the above mentioned items addressed, but I also have one further suggestion. If, in addition to the two knurled rollers, you added three more, it would make figuring out where you were octave-wise much easier. The most common complaint about the old EWI was that you couldn't "feel" which octave you were playing, and you had to guess a bit if you had to cross two or more rollers. Check the illustration. I also feel that the rollers could be made smaller. I think the original intent of the rollers was for the player to rest his thumb ON the roller. All the players I've ever talked to rested their thumbs BETWEEN two rollers, because the thumb can feel that slot easier. Smaller rollers would mean faster technique, and an easier time negotiating the several-octave leaps that contemporary composers tend to write for the instrument.

Summary

Best features: MIDI IN port, four VCO's, a removable mouthpiece, better sounding slurring, better, thicker sounds. Worst features: less control of vibrato parameters, no formant filter, no interface with old EWI/EVI, sloppy manual. Most of these things can be fixed with upgrades, and, if my rumor grapevine is accurate, AKAI is already working on some of them. The whole idea of wind-controlling a synthesized sound is to maximize the potential for human expression. I am against any change which limits or compromises that potential.

This article appeared in the "Flit Gun" newsletter shortly after the release of the EWI3000 to the marketplace. -Ed.