| Not
to long ago, I had the pleasure of opening up my EWV-1000 and
installing the upgraded software to give my unit the ability to send
velocity data to my external sound source. For those of us with
enough guts to open up the unit (especially those who know very
little about electronics) you can relate that this is a somewhat
frightening experience. After about an hour, I successfully in
stalled the new chip (keeping the old just in case) and tested out
the velocity functions.
Before you call AKAI
and order one of these chips, consider a few points. The most
important being whether or not your external sound source can accept
velocity data. If not, you really do not need the upgrade unless you
plan to get a more sophisticated sound source to play through. Other
than the ability to send velocity data, the unit remains the same in
function so, in reality, it is a very minor upgrade. For those with
velocity sensitive sound sources be warned that it takes a while to
get used to the velocity feature. I did not like it at first, and
almost considered putting my old chip back in. But once I got used
to it I decided that is a very useful feature for certain sounds.
Velocity seems to
work best with my piano patches, bell patches and the like. These
sounds have very constant envelopes and the velocity functions help
control the volume. Without velocity, the volume is constant, and
therefor not as realistic. However when I use the velocity feature
with my sax, trumpet, flute and other "expressive" patches
it just does not sound right. I seem to get volume changes for each
note, making the patch sound even more unnatural. For expressive
sounds I still use the EWV-1000 external connector jack, feeding the
patch back into the EWV envelopes. This still achieves the more
"realistic" sound. This way you get quite a bit more
volume control (more than controller 07) and this is very important
when emulating a wind instrument. Ironically, the EWV expression
jack does not work well with piano and bell sounds. The effect on
the otherwise constant envelope is too much and again realism is
lost. Convenience aside, the most important objective is to get the
authentic sound of the instrument.
If you are unsure
whether you have the velocity upgrade, check the "Q&A"
section of the page for the procedure to check for it. -Ed.
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